Resistance
by Anklebones
Summary: Slightly alternate time-line, Riley's still around, Cameron's glitch continues to make itself known, and Sarah...well Sarah gets to learn what it's like to be in John's shoes...in more ways than one.
1. Chapter 1

******Title: **Resistance (1/?)

******Fandom:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles  
******Pairing:** Sarah/Cameron  
******Disclaimer:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not mine...though since Fox appears to be dropping it, rightfully it should be up for grabs.  
******Rating**: PG for now...though I'm tagging it as R since it will at least that later...

******Summary:** Slightly alternate time-line, Riley's still around, Cameron's glitch continues to make itself known, and Sarah...well Sarah gets to learn what it's like to be in John's shoes...in more ways than one. I have no idea how long this may end up being...but here's part one.

They were arguing about her again. Cameron sat very rigidly on the edge of an armchair, her hands folded neatly together on her knees. She looked straight ahead, brown eyes unblinking and unfocused, her face a perfect neutral mask. Every so often her left hand quivered slightly, possibly betraying some inner turmoil that she didn't have the words, or even conscious understanding to express.

The terminator was becoming accustomed to this scene. Derek insisting vehemently that she was dangerous and untrustworthy and they would all be better off if she was deactivated, and John, just as passionately, asserting that they needed her abilities to survive at all against Skynet and the machines.

Sarah usually remained neutral throughout the majority of these debates. She would let Derek and John wear themselves out against each other, and then, when they were reduced to glaring and growling unintelligibly she would banish Derek outside or on an errand to cool off and give John something to do on his laptop, or send him to school, depending on the time of day…and nothing would change.

Tonight was different. Derek and John were still the main antagonists, and Sarah was still mostly staying out of it, but there were a few new players, and it was no ordinary argument. Despite her impassive face Cameron thought it unlikely that this argument would be resolved so easily.

Jessie, the Aussie soldier from the future, stood stiffly just inside the living room. Her arms were crossed and her bruised and scraped face was set as if she were waiting for the axe to fall, and fully intended to go ten rounds hand to hand with the executioner before it hit. Cameron did not think that Jessie would allow herself to be meekly sent outside…even by Sarah. Cameron did not understand this self destructive attitude. Even a terminator could learn that challenging Sarah when she was angry was self destructive. Many terminators had not survived this lesson.

The other addition to their latest domestic dispute was Riley, John's girlfriend and Jessie's weapon against his growing infatuation against Cameron. An obsession that Jessie claimed had changed the future and begun to turn John's own resistance fighters against him. Cameron had not yet had time to calculate the odds of this being true…but after scanning the woman's pulse rate, skin salinity and body temperature for signs of stress related to lying, she had to conclude that Jessie was likely telling the truth as she knew it.

Riley and John shared the couch, openly holding hands, their entire attitude that of teenage immovability. John's face was set as only a teenage boy's can be; at once innocent, furious and self righteous, with no room for negotiation or compromise, and beside him Riley clenched her free hand in her lap, the knuckles white where they weren't split and bleeding.

Cameron did not approve of Riley; she was a weak link, and a distraction to John. However it was John who had correctly deduced her origins and discovered her connection to Jessie…saving the girls life in the process. The terminator had to conclude that her preoccupation with Riley's affect on John had distracted her from the greater picture. This was a concern; Cameron needed to remain objective if she was to maintain maximum effectiveness.

"I knew that metal bitch was trouble." Derek, bleary eyed from lack of sleep and ongoing stress stood with Jessie by the door. "We should have burned her and her damned chip when we had the chance and none of this would have happened."

Cameron ignored what the ex-soldier was saying; focusing more on the meaning of the hand he rested on Jessie's shoulder. Was Derek still loyal to John? Had he finally crossed the line from asset to liability? If so he would need to be removed. Sarah and John would disagree because he was family. This apparently leant him additional value beyond his contributions to the team and mitigated some of the risk that he posed. This did not make any logical sense to Cameron, but she allowed that it might be something only human's understood.

What she was not prepared to make allowances for was the very obvious danger that Jessie had already proved herself capable of putting them in. The woman had attempted to manipulate her, and used John to do it. This was unacceptable. The terminator allowed her expression to become threatening and stared intensely across the room at the older couple.

"If you're going to kill me, I'd rather you just got on with it…instead of staring at me like a dingo with a snared rabbit." Jessie returned Cameron's glare, dagger for dagger, her voice somewhat choked by what was likely a broken nose.

"Hey, no one is killing anyone." Derek pressed her shoulder reassuringly, looking hard across the room at Sarah where she stood leaning against the archway to the kitchen, her hands wrapped tightly around an untouched mug of coffee, before cutting his gaze to the continuingly placid Cameron, who ignored him.

"Relax Derek. If Cameron was going to kill her it would already be done." Sarah refused to even look at the metal girl herself, apparently not allowing that there might be some doubt in the machines decision making skills lately. "I, on the other hand, haven't made up my mind yet."

Cameron was a little annoyed at being so easily dismissed. Despite her recent malfunctions she did not like the idea of Sarah making all the decisions. Sarah was often sentimental…especially about children. Riley was probably still a child in Sarah's estimation. She did not think that Sarah would let her remove Riley, but they should be able to compromise on Jessie.

"How do you know what she's going to do?" Derek was beginning to look a little wild-eyed. "She almost murdered John's girlfriend without even telling anyone, and she's supposed to be under control?" He had the grace to look a little shamefaced when Riley shuddered, and changed his tack. "The fact that Jessie and Riley are even here proves that she's a danger to John, and probably the downfall of the resistance. Has it occurred to you that that might be the reason she's here? How do we even know that John was the one who sent her? Skynet probably sent her back to brainwash him!"

"Hey!" John twisted around in his seat to look over the back of the couch at his increasingly distraught Uncle. "Could we please agree that I have some control over this? I'm not a-"

"Sixteen year old boy?" Sarah cut in, her expression skeptical but understanding. "Look John, no one is saying that you're…" she trailed off, apparently unable to come up with a generous way to say 'sex crazed adolescent', and eventually giving up "Let's just agree that Cameron isn't exactly your average pretty girl with a crush. She's a terminator, they don't give up, and they never stop. If she's programmed to seduce you, she won't take no for an answer and she won't let anything," here her gaze shifted to include Riley, "or anyone, stand in her way."

Slightly mollified that Sarah had called her pretty – even primitive terminators were capable of taking pride in the successful execution of their objectives, and she was not a primitive model—Cameron had to allow that Sarah's analysis was essentially correct. This conclusion left her strangely unsure…Was she actually a danger to John's future ability to lead the resistance?

"She is right. I may prove to be an undesirable influence on John." Slowly she turned her head to look at the future savior of mankind, still expressionless.

"My primary mission is to protect you, and assist you in preventing the creation of Skynet." She paused. "But Future John also knows what it is like to be lonely, and he has seen many human friends die. He did not want his younger self to suffer in the same way, so I was also programmed to become close to you, providing long term companionship that would not endanger you or anyone else. This included attempting to prevent you from forming risky and unnecessary human relationships." She paused. "Upon consideration of the intelligence provided by Jessie and Riley, It seems likely that this was inadvisable."

Later, Sarah would be unable to recall exactly who said what, and what threats, insults and accusations flew around the room as a result of that simple confession. She was in a state of shock. Despite actively disapproving of John's response to the terminator in the past, she had not honestly believed that Cameron was doing it on purpose. Knowing the implacable nature of the machines, she felt real fear for her son and the future of mankind. What if Cameron suddenly decided that John's relationship with his mother was unnecessary or risky?

Predictably Derek was all for deactivating the terminator immediately. No metal, no problem. John could not develop a perverted relationship with a machine that wasn't there.

Jessie backed Derek up…Her personal grudge against the metal allowed little room for compromise, and she argued that if the terminator wasn't destroyed, Cameron's programming would force her to continue to try and isolate John in the name of protecting him.

John, now white faced and shaking, argued vehemently that they couldn't really know what the future held. They couldn't possibly know what had already been changed by Jessie and Riley's foray into the past.

Furious at Cameron for not telling them this sooner, and terrified for her son, Sarah nonetheless couldn't see any resolution to this circular argument and she very nearly snarled them all into silence. Had it been only Derek who opposed her, or had she not harbored her own secret doubts about keeping the terminator around, that would have been the end of it.

But uncertainty robbed Sarah of her usual fierce assumption of authority. She had spent too long with only herself to rely on to keep John safe and too long with no one else to count on to have her back in a fight. She needed Cameron's fighting skills, her unshakable focus and single-minded determination to protect John, but as much as it galled her to admit it, she needed Derek's experience and position as a role model for John too…and Derek loved Jessie…and clearly her son wasn't prepared to give up Riley…so somehow she needed a solution that everyone could live with, that didn't end in future mutiny for the resistance.

It all kept coming back around to Cameron's unpredictability. To what lengths would the terminator go to achieve her goals? She had already come very close to killing Riley once, who would be next if John tried to distance himself from the terminator?

It was Riley who finally found an answer, her voice shaking a little as she turned wary blue eyes on the subject of their verbal melee, who was still sitting perfectly still in her chair. "Can't we just reprogram her?"

John threw up his hands, clearly beyond frustrated. "I don't know how, and we don't have that kind of technology anyway. I could barely _read _Vicks chip let alone-" he began, but Cameron interrupted him.

"Yes. That may be feasible. I have a verbal override system keyed to John's voice that should allow him to authorize minor alterations to my secondary and tertiary directives. It is a failsafe that Future John put in place." She appeared to be taken a little aback, but nodded approvingly at Riley. "That was a very good idea. My programming did not permit me to suggest it, much as I cannot attempt self termination, but I am apparently allowed to explain the process."

And that more or less ended it. If Cameron's threat to John as a barrier between him and the rest of the world could be neutralized without compromising her ability to protect him, then there was no reason to deactivate her, and every reason to keep her around.

Derek and Jessie were poor losers, and there was a great deal of grumbling from that quarter, but Sarah suspected that it was mostly for show. Jessie was clearly relieved that she had not completely failed in her mission, and Derek seemed almost pathetically grateful that he hadn't been forced to choose between his loyalty to John, and supporting his lovers concerns for the future. While neither of them was happy about the terminator remaining part of the team, they accepted it with only as much ill will as they felt was absolutely necessary to save their pride.

While John conferred with Cameron on the step by step process of accessing her directive fail-safes, and Derek took a rifle outside to cool down and make himself useful covering Cameron's patrol for her, Jessie sat down with Riley on the couch.

Brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen, Sarah couldn't hear what the women were saying to each other, but it seemed to be civil enough so she hoped the Aussie was apologizing. How exactly someone apologized for setting you up to be murdered in order to save mankind, she had no idea, but she hoped for Riley's sake that it would give the girl some closure.

As for Sarah…despite her outward calm she was still reeling from what Riley and Jessie had revealed about John's future. How could her son lose touch with humanity so completely that his own resistance began to doubt him? Despite Cameron's admission Sarah couldn't rest the entirety of the blame of those thin metal shoulders…much as she would have liked to. No. Some of the fault must be her own. She looked back over the last 16 and a half years…every time John had formed an attachment to a place, she had been forced to move them again.

Countless burgeoning friendships had been left behind because Sarah was afraid to let anyone get too close to them. Even Charley, the first man, excluding the T888 that she had lowered into boiling slag, that John had really begun to look at as a father figure, had been sent away to keep him safe.

No, Sarah couldn't blame it all on the terminator, or Future John's understandable wish for a friendship that wouldn't end in blood and death. Not when it was her fault that he had been so alone. No wonder he had sent himself a friend back from the future…one made out of metal, that didn't die, and would not endanger them. No wonder he'd instructed that machine to jump them over his mother's death…he had no one else.

"Sarah" Cameron's voice, coming from right behind her where she stood brooding over the gurgling coffee pot, made the older woman jump.

"Damnit girlie, we need to hang a bell on you. Make some noise next time." Sarah turned, swiping a hand across her face quickly to make sure that the slight burning in her eyes hadn't resolved into tears.

Cameron deviated from her usual blank expression to give Sarah one that was pointedly irritated, as if asking how she was to patrol effectively while jingling. "I am sorry." If Sarah hadn't known better she would have said the tone held a hint of sarcasm. "I shall attempt to be louder."

The terminator indicated the kitchen table. "John and I are ready to begin now. May we use the table?" At Sarah's affirmative she continued. "It would be better for us to be alone. I will be vulnerable in the receptive state, and John should not be distracted. I have explained to him what he must do to alter my directives, but the process is delicate and any deviation could cause complications." She paused and looked back into the living room where Derek was just coming in the front door and joining Jessie on the couch. "I would also prefer not to have those who wish me harm nearby when I am not fully operational."

Sarah followed Cameron's glance and nodded understandingly. "Yeah I get that."

Since there were limited beds and John was not about to let Riley out of the immediate vicinity, Derek and Jessie went back to her apartment for the remainder of the night, and Riley, with Cameron's permission, was bedded down in the terminators room. When asked if she minded giving up her bed, Cameron had fixed John with her best neutral stare. "I don't sleep."

Sarah meanwhile was busying herself checking all the locks on doors and windows and setting the alarm system. Cameron watched her from the kitchen archway as she keyed in the alarm code and despite her obvious exhaustion, took a book from the bookshelf and shoved a small handgun into the waistband of her pants before heading for a chair in the living room.

"You should sleep. Your body is extremely enervated."

Sarah ignored her, settling down on the armchair furthest from the kitchen so that she would not be a distraction. Coming up behind Cameron John seconded the terminators advice.

"Mom, you really look like hell, you need to sleep."

"Hey, don't worry about me; I'm not going to bed until you two are finished with your ones and zero's in there. Someone has to be on guard while the Landmine is out of commission." That settled she opened her book and proceeded to pretend to be reading. Conversation over.

John sighed but let it go. There was absolutely no arguing with his mother when she was like this…though on second thought, there was _never_ any arguing with his mother, so really it was business as usual.

Cameron and John settled themselves at the kitchen table. John had several sheets of paper in front of him with the complex codes that Cameron had given him to activate her directive's receptive state. If he understood her correctly, this failsafe would only allow him to make minor shifts in her programming. He should be able to disable her imperative to remove all human obstacles between them and get cosy, but he might not be able to remove the directive entirely. Apparently the verbal coding that future John had put in place had not been thoroughly tested…there hadn't been time.

He also could not change anything that was hard wired, like her termination overrides. Those were coded directly into her chip, which is why the damage she'd sustained in the jeep explosion had caused a reset.

John had never managed to get a straight answer from her about whether the hasty repairs he had made to her chip, her own self analysis and repair, or simply being rebooted, had renewed the override. She just ignored the question. It was possible that she herself didn't know. While this did not exactly give him peace of mind, he had to allow that she had some right to privacy as far as her own systems were concerned.

"You're nervous." Sitting across from him Cameron was looking at John with something that looked like a combination of concern and reservation. Since he was about to rearrange her software with nothing but a handful of written notes and good intentions, John couldn't bring himself to blame her.

"You're heart rate is elevated and you're sweating…are you confidant that you can execute this procedure?"

"I'm good." John laid out the sheets in order. "Just like programming a vcr."

"Sarah programmed the vcr."

"Well, then we'll just have to trust that I could have done it better."

Cameron raised one eyebrow, a human trick that she rather liked for its effectiveness in adding various nuances to a conversation. "_You_ can tell her that."

John coughed to cover a laugh. "Let's get started shall we?"

The sun was just coming over the horizon when John finally obtained access to Cameron's directive programs. Future John had built in multiple technical hoops to jump through and tests designed to ascertain that it was actually John Connor trying to gain entry and not a terminator using his voice. And it all seemed to be for nothing as John was having absolutely no luck removing the directive.

He had come at it from every direction he could think of, and he could access the program, given in monotone by a blank eyed Cameron,

"Directive: 00002

System Mode: Infiltration

Target: John Connor

Instructions: Secure primary affections and discourage outside competition.

Provide support and companionship; simulating human affection until spontaneous replication can be achieved."

John tried removing the directive all together, only to be informed that he lacked authorization to deactivate active directives. He tried inserting "do not" into the code…and got

"That modification would contradict the Primary Directive."

He tried removing key words to try and disarm the effectiveness of the program, but no matter what he tried, Cameron's inflectionless voice found a way around it. Eventually he was issued a warning that further attempts to undermine the integrity of this directive would result in a 24 hour lock out.

Almost pulling his hair out in frustration John got up from the table and paced, trying to figure out some way to change the wording in the code that would maintain its integrity as beneficial to him, John Connor, but not force Cameron to throw Riley, and anyone else he happened to like, out a window. Not to mention giving Derek ample ammunition to insist on her deactivation

Walking past the doorway to the living room for the fifth time, John's attention was caught by his mother…she had fallen asleep over the book. The weak sunlight filtering in through the blinds was just enough to illuminate the dark circles under eyes, and the worry lines etched into the skin around her mouth and between her eyebrows. Even asleep she looked beleaguered.

John fleetingly wished that there was someone strong enough to take better care of his mother. He had people looking out for him…he glanced back at Cameron's rigid figure…too many in fact, but she had no one. He was also painfully aware of the fact that his mother would never let him put her welfare before his own, and it wouldn't occur to Derek to try. There had been Charley…but after his wife's death he no longer wanted anything to do with them…

Reluctantly returning to the table, John looked down at the vacant terminator and got the barest hint of an idea. His mother would kill him if she found out…but she didn't ever need to know. Cameron herself had admitted that she may be unaware of the specifics of minor changes to her lesser directives unless he told her about them. Future John had been very upfront about what he was asking her to do, but this John knew the benefits of a covert operation. He sat down with a grin…all he needed to do was a little substitution.

"Cameron. Reset directive 0002. Change target to Sarah Connor." Cameron blinked and John held his breath, waiting to be told he was locked out.

"Affirmative. Reset and replacement is acceptable. Directive has been modified."

There….with the smug assurance known only to teenagers, thoroughly convinced of their superior understanding of life, John congratulated himself on devising a solution that would be good for everyone. That would teach them to assume he couldn't think for himself, and it wasn't like a hard bitten warrior like Sarah Connor was ever going to be susceptible to the wiles of a petite 16 year old girl anyhow, terminator or not.


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah awoke uncharacteristically slowly, squinting against the flickering bands of afternoon sunlight darting in around the blinds over the western window. Slowly it registered that she was in bed in her room...but it took a few heartbeats to realize why that felt so wrong.

The last thing she remembered was waiting in the living room for John to finish with Cameron…John and Cameron! The events of the previous evening and early morning flooded back into her consciousness in an adrenalin pumping rush, sending her lunging out from under the blankets, only to slam back against the headboard, gun swept out from under the pillow and aimed point blank at the person sitting on the edge of her bed.

"John!"

Sara quickly lowered the gun, cuffing her smirking son upside the head with the other hand. "You idiot! What are you doing in here?"

John ducked laughing but quickly raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, but hey, now you know how it feels!"

"Hmm…" Sarah slid the gun back under her pillow, noticing as she did so that she was still wearing yesterday's clothes, though someone had thoughtfully taken off her shoes. "How did I…?"

John sobered, taking in his mother's obvious confusion. "Cameron. She carried you upstairs and tucked you in. I drew the line at letting her put you in your pyjamas though, I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

Sarah hoped her expression said it all. The idea of Cameron playing nursemaid…well it didn't bear thinking about, though it brought strongly to mind a scene from one of their recent rescue missions; Cameron holding a young Martin Bedell three feet off the ground by the front of his shirt, and asking if he'd like a bedtime story.

"Thanks…I think." She pushed past John and slid out of bed, crossing to her dresser to rummage for clean clothes. "Why didn't you just wake me up?"

John was silent so long that Sarah stopped pushing clothes around and turned to look at him "What?"

"Mom…you fell asleep…on guard." John was clearly uncomfortable making an issue out of it, dropping his gaze to study the carpet under his feet and rubbing fretfully at the back of his neck. "We thought…that is…Cameron says you've lost weight…and you almost never eat or sleep regularly, I was worried!"

Sarah closed her eyes on his earnest, concerned face and exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to snap out a denial. It would only make him sulky and she didn't need the guilt. He was right. She had been refusing to think about the meaning behind being tucked in like a little girl…what it meant that it was even possible that she had slept through being carried up the stairs to bed by a terminator, even one that she tentatively trusted.

"I was just tired…It's been a rough few weeks for all of us."

"But…"

"John!" He subsided reluctantly, his expression still mutinous. "I'm fine all right? I would tell you if there was anything wrong." Which was a blatant lie and they both knew it, but John accepted it because there was no alternative.

"Now," Sarah turned back to her clothing search, pulling out an outfit almost randomly. "Tell me how it went with Cameron this morning."

John allowed himself to be distracted, probably sensing that there was no more ground to be gained right now in pursuing his mother's physical well being. "Good." He couldn't contain a self satisfied grin. "She shouldn't be following me around for any reason other than to keep me alive anymore."

"Well thank goodness for that." Satisfied that the immediate concerns had been dealt with, Sarah shoved the dresser drawers closed and turned to leave the room only to stop just short of running into the terminator herself, standing in the doorway and holding out a cup of coffee.

"I heard voices." Cameron proffered the mug. "It's just the way you like it."

"Doesn't anyone have anything better to do than baby-sit me today?" Sarah asked aggrievedly of the world at large, trapped between a worried son and her disturbingly solicitous, not to mention fictional, metal daughter. Plucking the steaming coffee out of Cameron's hands on her way past, Sarah stalked down the hall. "I'll be in the shower, try to remember that you're supposed to be self absorbed teenagers by the time I get out."

*****

Immersing herself in the sensations of water pouring over her skin, soapy lather, and the rough chafing of a worn red towel, Sarah managed to push her worries aside for the duration of her shower. But like unpaid bills they were waiting for her when she came out, and seemed all the heavier for the temporary relief of a few minutes respite.

Denying the inevitable for a little longer, Sarah took the time in front of the full length bathroom mirror to do a swift catalogue of the various bumps, bruises lacerations and cuts in various stages of healing that decorated her body. Unlike the terminator who fought at her side and admittedly took the brunt of the punishment in their battle against Skynet, Sarah had no specialized healing processes. She had a thorough knowledge of first aid and stomach enough to do her own stitching and that was all. Fishing the antiseptic and medicated salve out of the medicine cabinet, Sarah began her daily routine of disinfecting and soothing.

She'd been worse. Today everything seemed to be more or less putting itself back together. There was one really nasty bruise that went all the way through to the muscle on her lower back, just left of her spine where she'd taken a backhand from a terminator tossing her aside in order to engage Cameron, and another on her upper arm from hitting the floor, but the edges were beginning to fade into a mottled yellow and green, and she could almost stretch her hands above her head without pain.

The cuts and lacerations were all superficial and thankfully, for the most part easily covered. In worn black jeans and a long sleeved shirt she looked almost normal. The knuckles of her right hand were slightly abraded, but nothing anyone was likely to comment on in a casual conversation. Outside of her strange little family the only conversations Sarah had with anyone anymore were either casual or life or death…so she was fairly confidant that there wouldn't be any awkward questions to field.

And speaking of awkward…she'd delayed long enough, too long really. It was time to face the world again, a prospect that became less and less appealing every day.

*****

In hindsight she should have known better than to walk straight into the living room without trying to make a little noise on the way down the stairs. Having your adolescence cut short at eighteen by being told your fate is to be 'the mother of all destiny' –really, who came up with that title?—may have meant she missed out on a few things, but she hadn't completely forgotten what it was like to be a teenager…so she should have known better, but really, so should they.

Riley and John sprang apart at her entrance, hastily putting a few feet between them on the couch and studying their respective toes with all the guilty, but ultimately unrepentant, shame of a dog caught stealing chocolate out of the cupboard.

Sarah paused long enough to ascertain that their clothing was no more disarrayed than what could be accounted for by brief necking before pointing to them each in turn, her expression promising a future reckoning.

"You and you. In the kitchen, five minutes. Leave the hormones at the door." Not waiting long enough to see their reactions, she continued through into the kitchen, poured a second cup of coffee and took it out into the front yard to locate the missing chaperone.

It didn't take her long. Cameron was standing alone by the driveway on the very edge of the property, looking out into the street. The metal girl must have heard Sarah walking up behind her, but she gave no sign, all of her attention focused on a single daisy that she held delicately in one hand while she methodically pulled the petals off with the other.

"He loves you not." Sarah came to a stop beside the terminator and leaned on the mailbox, sipping her coffee. "Which you would know if you were inside keeping an eye on them instead of out here killing my daisies."

"John asked me to give them some space…" Cameron dropped the mutilated flower and looked across at Sarah. "This is as far as I could go without leaving the property."

"You shouldn't have left them alone together."

"Why not?" She tilted her head, for all intents and purposes, genuinely confused. "Riley poses no physical threat…and I am no longer compelled to interfere with their relationship… That's what you wanted."

"What I want," Sarah's voice held the barest touch of a frustrated growl, "Is not to be a grandmother before I'm forty. So try not to leave them alone together all right?"

Cameron's expression cleared. "I understand. You do not wish for them to copulate."

Sarah almost choked on a mouthful of coffee. "Catch on quick, don't you girlie." She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, coughing through a snatch of what could have otherwise been slightly hysterical laughter.

"You shouldn't worry. John received excellent grades in sexual education, which included a unit on safe sex and contraception. He also has condoms in his dresser." She continued, completely oblivious to the increasingly strangled look on Sarah's face. "Due to lingering radiation in the future, Riley may also experience lowered fertility…It is extremely unlikely that they will become pregnant accidentally."

Sarah just stared…there were so many levels if information there that she simply did not want to have access to…and she really didn't want to know how Cameron had obtained any of it either.

"That's not the point!" She managed to get out between clenched teeth.

"But you said that you didn't want to be a grandmother…Why else would you object to the consummation of their relationship? I have learned that it is common in this time for young couples to engage in premarital sexual intercourse. They are both under eighteen so it would not be statu- "

"Cameron!" Sarah actually caught the back of the terminators neck with one hand and pressed the other over her mouth. "Enough!" The mother in her was becomingly increasingly frantic to end the conversation. How even a socially awkward machine could fail to grasp…wait…she studied the girls carefully arranged expression, all innocence and curiosity around her pressing hand.

"You're baiting me." She said it flatly, releasing Cameron with a none too gentle shove and crossing her arms.

The terminator shrugged and looked back at the road, the faintest suggestion of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth before she schooled her expression once more. "You were upset about this morning. You needed a distraction." She allowed herself a sideways glance to gauge Sarah's mood…apparently relieved that she wasn't homicidal yet…"It is also…interesting…to see how you will react when pressured."

"Let me get this straight…" Sarah rubbed her temples, feeling the beginnings of a terminator induced headache. "You decided to distract me from worrying about my health by being deliberately exasperating, using my son's sex life as a vehicle, and you find that amusing?"

"Yes…Don't you?"

Actually…she was beginning to see the funny side of it…so it _must_ be a brain tumour…that or she was finally having a nervous breakdown. Anything but the strange and completely bizarre idea that she might actually be feeling better after having a verbal train wreck of a conversation with a machine who was apparently developing a uniquely sadistic sense of humour.

"Sarah?"

"Mm Hmm?"

"I don't think I'd make a very good Aunt…"

Somehow the image of the future John Connor Jr. receiving his first semi-automatic rifle from an over indulgent Aunty Cameron wasn't nearly as frightening as it should have been.

Definitely a brain tumour.

*****

Cameron and Sarah had claimed opposite ends of the kitchen table leaving Riley and John to sit together along one side. Cameron appreciated the symbolism. Their willingness to place themselves together, between her and Sarah indicated an acceptance of their status as subordinate members of the group. John may have been destined to lead mankind, but Cameron was all too aware of the gulf that still separated him from the John of the future.

They were waiting for Derek and Jesse. The couple had called just as Sarah and Cameron were coming in from the front yard, on their way over with something they thought Sarah needed to see.

Dinner simmered on the oven…Soup. Cameron suspected it would be overdone, but she said nothing. Sarah did not it when anyone called attention to her lack of cooking skills. They would probably end up ordering pizza…John preferred Chinese, but Sarah didn't like the fortune cookies. The terminator wondered idly if Sarah's pathological inability to cook was also related to her fear of anything to do with time, and the future. The idea seemed illogical enough to be human…Though as humans went, she found Sarah less illogical than most.

Riley jumped as the front door crashed open, and shifted her chair a little closer to Johns, quite obviously aware that she had no other real allies. Cameron could have told her that in this family, John was probably the best ally she could have…but she doubted Riley would have believed her. Unlike his mother John often did not understand the idea of acceptable losses, and while Sarah may have been nominally in charge, she would never do anything to deliberately hurt her son…so Riley was safe. For now.

Derek entered the kitchen somewhat warily…as if unsure of his welcome…or that of Jesse, who followed him far more casually, giving no indication of sharing his fears. She sniffed the air…"Is something burning?"

It broke the tension.

"Shit!" Sarah shoved her chair back and swept the pot off the burner, discarding it unemptied in the sink with no more than a cursory inspection. "Who wants pizza?"

*****

Pizza boxes were laid open on the table, with the food itself having rapidly disappeared into hungry mouths before Derek finally brought up the reason he'd come over. He tossed a newspaper over the table to Sarah, taking a swig of his beer before explaining. "Third page in, halfway down."

Sarah shoved her still full plate aside and scanned the paper, dark brows furrowed over her eyes in what Cameron knew as her 'focused' look. "Four year old girl caught in the middle of a shoot out….what does this have to do with us?"

"Check the name."

"Sydney Fields…Oh."

Riley glanced around the suddenly silent table, clearly not catching on. "Who?"

"Sydney Fields, immune to a bioengineered virus released by Skynet in 2025, her blood was used to synthesize a cure. Skynet sent back a terminator to kill her mother." Cameron supplied into the silence. "We stopped it. They must have sent another one back to finish the job."

"But Sydney wouldn't even be a year old yet…that girl was four." John took the article from his mother, scanning it quickly. "Skynet must not know exactly where she is, it's just going after everyone with that name."

"Yes. That is a common Skynet strategy." Cameron stared down the length of the table, waiting for Sarah's reaction. She suspected she knew exactly what the woman was going to say.

Sarah raised her eyes to meet Cameron's, seeing complete ruthlessness in their disturbingly realistic chocolate depths…and she hesitated.

"There's nothing we can do." The terminators voice was implacable.

"We have to find her." Sarah snapped back, appalled by the complete indifference in Cameron's voice.

"We have to fight Skynet…Protect John."

"They're the same thing."

"No. They're not." Everyone else at the table held perfectly still, apparently unwilling to redirect any of the carefully restrained fury crackling between the two women, one flesh and one metal, both equally dangerous.

"Without that cure, future John could die." Sarah forced the argument almost evenly through gritted teeth.

"Without John there will be no resistance left to need a cure." Cameron rejoined, sitting perfectly still in a way that called to mind a stalking cat.

"This isn't your decision!"

"And it isn't our fight. We disabled the first terminator; it is now Lauren Fields' mission to protect her sister. They will have different names; the terminator will almost certainly not find them. It's not worth the risk. "

"And all of the little girls with her name who are going to die? They don't matter?"

"Only John matters."

Cameron's voice was flat, inflectionless, Sarah wanted to throw something at her, shoot her, anything to get a reaction. She settled for shoving the table hard enough that the terminator was forced to catch the edge. "Go to hell!"

Standing up so quickly that her chair clattered to the kitchen floor Sarah stalked out of the room. A moment later her door crashed shut loudly enough to be heard downstairs.

*****

After Derek and Jesse had gone and Riley was watching television in the living room, John found Cameron standing outside his mothers closed door. Despite knowing it was impossible, John could have sworn he saw genuine concern in the wide brown eyes trained unswervingly on the unyielding wood.

"She knew you know… That we couldn't go after the girl. She just didn't want to face it." John didn't know why he was explaining this to her, except that she looked so damned unhappy.

"I know."

John blinked, confused now. "Then why did you start a fight with her about it?"

"Because," Cameron spoke quietly…seemingly more to herself than to him, "When she's angry, she forgets to be afraid."

John literally couldn't find a single word to say as he watched the terminator turn away from the door and walk down the hall to her room. He was beginning to worry that he may have made a slight miscalculation…

*****

Sarah was furious. Furious that she'd lost control, furious that everyone she most needed to be strong in front of had witnessed it, and mostly furious with a certain Tin Can going by the name of Cameron.

Also, she admitted once she'd calmed down enough to stop pacing and tossing pillows, she was furious with herself because logically, the metal girl was right…and something about that was bothering the hell out of her…Sarah threw herself down on her bed, lacing her fingers behind her head, and stared up at the ceiling. Wasn't that usually _her_ line 'Only John matters'…?

Inexplicably she was thrown back to the fight from the night before, something Jesse had said. "A John Connor we can't see might as well be a dead Connor. Nobody is going to fight for someone who doesn't give a shit about them."

Like a truck load of Coltan plummeting off a cliff, it hit her. Cameron wasn't right…_She_ hadn't been right. Slowly, painfully and inexorably her brain ground through that idea. Last night she had realized what affect the life they were living was having, and would have, on her son. She had faced the idea that he would be emotionally scarred; unable or unwilling to risk forming attachments with people who might die or leave. He would cease to be the man the resistance needed him to be. Why? Because she had believed that only John mattered, and she had forced that idea on him until he believed it too.

But tonight she had been about to make the same mistake. She had been about to say that they couldn't do anything for Sydney Fields, until Cameron had said it for her.

After that it had been instinctual to disagree with the machine. Looking back she realized that hearing that cold emotionless voice pronouncing a death sentence on countless children, and then dismissing Sydney as Lauren's mission and not theirs…had been like looking into a mechanical mirror…and that scared the hell out of her.

She thought back to Johns face when she'd read out the name of the girl from the newspaper. He had known there was no way to save those little girls, and he had to have realized that there was a good chance that the terminator would find the real Sydney and kill her. He'd accepted it. Her loving, courageous son, who had refused to talk to her for days when Cameron had stopped him from helping a suicidal teen, had looked at that horrifying truth, and accepted it. What had she done to him? What had she done to herself?

Cameron's words from this afternoon came back to her with dawning understanding. 'It is also…interesting…to see how you will react when pressured.' Was it possible that the metal bitch had done it on purpose? That she had known what Sarah was going to say and deliberately manoeuvred her into taking the opposite stance?

It made a sort of horrifying sense.

If Cameron hadn't pre-empted her, Sarah would have made that impossible decision herself. Derek would have backed her and together they would have convinced John. She would have been racked with guilt, but she would have hardened her heart and moved forward, because it was always up to her to make the hard decisions. Cameron had taken that role away from her, freeing her up to be angry, to feel…and to think.

They would have to track down the girls…and maybe anyone else that Skynet might be after. She had done her best to convince John that his life was more important than anyone else's, that no sacrifice was too great if it meant keeping him safe. Now, as much as it frightened her, she needed to teach him otherwise. John Connor, more than anyone, must relearn the value of human life.

A shiver ran down Sarah's spine. Was it possible that a terminator, an emotionless cybernetic organism, had figured that out first? And if it was, what did that mean about who was really running things around here?

*****

The house was asleep…or at least half of it was. Cameron made her third circuit of the night, checking in on both John and Riley to make sure that they slept safely. Mindful of Sarah's concerns, she had kept an eye on them, offering her bed to Riley before John could even think of sharing his. The girl had been asleep by 1:17 am. John had sat up with his laptop another hour before succumbing to his own exhaustion at 2:23 am. From the vital signs she could read when she came to the last door in the hallway, Cameron knew that Sarah was still awake.

Concerned, the machine considered the possibility that she had miscalculated the correct amount of force to apply in order to push the older woman out of her usual behavioural patterns. She knew that Sarah was terrified to endanger John…and even more afraid that the spectre of cancer looming over her would descend like an implacable executioner; leaving him alone and defenceless. She was so focused on keeping him safe, and so obsessed with being strong for her son, that she couldn't see how her fears were crippling both of them.

Freed from her directive to become John's closest companion, and without a mother's fears to blind her, Cameron saw the situation objectively. John needed to be allowed to be a hero...and Sarah needed someone else to be strong enough to share some of her responsibilities and fears.

Cameron could be strong …it's what she had been built for.

"Cameron!"

The terminator snapped out of her reflective state, abruptly refocusing as Sarah's door swung open in front of her, revealing the subject of her current musings looking not at all pleased to find the terminator standing outside her room in the middle of the night.

Cameron glanced down at Sarah's hands before responding…no gun. She hadn't pushed too far then. "Yes?"

Sarah pushed hair back out of her face fretfully, obviously uncomfortable. "What are you doing—"She stopped, obviously realizing that it was a pointless question to which the response would probably be some variation of 'I don't sleep'. "Never mind…We need to talk."

Having been far more prepared for violence than conversation at this point, Cameron took a moment to process the situation. She studied Sarah thoughtfully; reading a slightly increased heart rate, blood pressure and skin temperature…and concluded that the older woman was possibly nervous, upset or, quite likely given past experience, angry.

"Cameron?" Sarah spoke a little more sharply, made uneasy by the dark eyed stare that seemed to pass straight through her.

The terminator blinked, ending her scrutiny. "I am sorry…Yes, we should talk."

Sarah nodded, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, chilled by more than the air. "Downstairs then, I don't want to wake anyone."

Cameron followed Sarah placidly down the stairs and out onto the back porch, standing quietly while the other woman walked jerkily back and forth over the wooden planks, and waiting patiently for her to decide what she wanted to say.

After a minute, Sarah seemed to reach some kind of decision and halted abruptly, spinning to fix Cameron with accusing eyes.

"Did you play me?"

Cameron reviewed her options for a fraction of a second and decided on honesty. "Yes."

Clearly wishing she _had_ brought a gun after all, Sarah gritted her teeth and resisted the obvious urge for violence. "Why?"

"Because it was necessary…you would not have argued the way you did otherwise."

"You can't know what I would have done …_I_ don't even know what I would have done!"

They'd had this conversation before, Cameron took a step back, she really didn't want Sarah to hit her again…She didn't have a weapon this time; it would probably cause unnecessary damage to the woman's hand.

"I could not take that chance."

For the space of a few breaths it looked like Sarah _was_ going to hit her…but then the tension simply drained out of the woman like water from a punctured bucket, and she stepped away, sinking down to sit on the porch steps. Leaning forwards, she rested her elbows on her knees cradling her head in her hands.

Cameron hesitated briefly, and then sat beside her, the narrowness of the stairs meaning that they were almost touching. In anyone else, Sarah's apparent vulnerability at this time would have indicated a need for physical comfort. Cameron was certain however that this particular woman would _not_ appreciate the sentiment, so she simply sat very still…close, but not intrusive.

"You could have just said…" Sarah spoke to the night, giving no indication that her words were for the terminator beside her save that she said them in her presence

"No…" Cameron refused to court the pretence of talking to the darkness beyond the porch. She turned her head to look directly at Sarah. "If we had agreed, Derek and Jesse would have fought...They look at me and they can only see a machine conspiracy. It would have become a battle between us and them. Now you can overrule me, and it's human versus metal. They won't resist." Cameron waited a moment, but Sarah didn't look at her. "I am a scary robot; I can be the bad guy."

"So I don't have to be…" Sarah breathed thoughtfully, only to furrow her brow in confusion. "But where is this coming from? Last week John had to explain to you that 'dog-eat-dog' had nothing to do with dogs. You're a machine, you don't understand human relationships.

"John likes to explain things to me…it…amuses him." She paused to let the possibility sink in that she was not above playing dumb to further her objectives. "I think now that I am no longer programmed to study all human relations only as they relate to John, I am able to understand the ones that relate to you" This made sense to Cameron. Sarah was the dominant personality of the group, if she wanted to fulfill her mission to protect John and destroy Skynet she needed to focus on understanding and supporting her.

"I see…" And as swiftly as that, Sarah was unapproachable again. She stood up, brushed a smidge of dirt off of her jeans and turned to go into the house, pausing a moment on the threshold.

"Cameron…"

"Yes Sarah?" Cameron twisted around to look up at the other woman silhouetted in light of the doorway.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again! Or so help me I will tell John to deactivate you."

"I swear…" Camerons soft response was heard only by the crickets and a few early rising birds. Sarah was gone.

*****

Lying awake in bed as the sun started edging up over the horizon, alone, without defences or distractions, Sarah was finally unable to stop the cold clammy hand of panic from wrapping itself around her heart.

She was sick.

She'd been trying to ignore it for weeks, but there was no denying the evidence that was stacking up against her. Weight loss, exhaustion, lack of appetite and, most damning, the erosion of her focus, painted a grim picture.

It was unacceptable that she had allowed herself to fall asleep when she was supposed to be on guard…almost inconceivable…and yet it had happened. Worse, she hadn't roused when carried to her room…by a terminator. Something was very, very wrong.

Sarah turned her thoughts towards her body…somewhere in there something insidious might be uncurling; sending runners out to latch onto her major organs and suck the life out of her…Nausea gripped her, and she wondered if it was a symptom or just a reaction to panic.

Forcing herself to calm down, Sarah deliberately closed her eyes and sought oblivion. Whether the cancer had finally caught up with her, or it was some other disease, or even just a combination of overwhelming fatigue and poor nutrition, there was nothing to be gained by terrifying herself stupid. Or anyone else for that matter she resolved, thinking of John. She would deal with it on her own…the way she always did.

As if that small decision was enough to tip the balance between worry and exhaustion, Sarah was finally able to let go of the waking world and fall into sleep…where her nightmares were waiting.

TBC…


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **Resistance (3/?)

**Fandom:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles  
**Pairing:** Sarah/Cameron  
**Disclaimer:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not mine...though since Fox appears to be dropping it, rightfully it should be up for grabs.  
**Rating**: PG for now...though I'm tagging it as R since it will at least that later...

**Summary:** Slightly alternate time-line, Riley's still around, Cameron's glitch continues to make itself known, and Sarah...well Sarah gets to learn what it's like to be in John's shoes...in more ways than one. I have no idea how long this may end up being...

"You can't be serious!" Derek protested over a plate of runny scrambled eggs and burnt toast.

"And yet I am." Sarah responded, pushing her own breakfast around on her plate, and doing her best to remain calm.

"You want us to risk John's life by taking in a bunch of stray kids, and somehow keep them all safe while we're fighting to bring down Skynet?" He shoved his plate away with a scrape of porcelain against wood and stood up, "You're insane!"

"He's right. It's crazy." Cameron offered thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on the fuming soldier as she deliberately put a forkful of eggs into her mouth, chewed and swallowed.

Sarah watched the exchange tensely while striving to appear indifferent. Cameron was doing brilliantly. Nothing made Derek crazier than watching the machine pretend to be human, and for some reason seeing her eat had always driven him particularly wild.

He snorted…caught between siding with the terminator and acceding to Sarah's admittedly risky proposition. Beaten, he sat back down and picked up his fork.

"So how are you planning on finding them?"

Sarah breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was working. "John. He's already pulling up the files on every social assistance program for single mothers in LA. Lauren must be supporting them some how, and she'll have a lot easier time keeping custody of her sister posing as her mother."

John had been disbelievingly ecstatic when she told him they were going after Sydney and Lauren…and he'd been on the computer ever since, not even giving Riley more than a cursory wave when she left with Jesse to meet up with her foster parents. The two of them had some kind of plan to facilitate Riley's disappearance with minimal fuss…Sarah hadn't asked for details.

That was another thing Derek had fumed about…he refused to understand why Sarah wanted to keep Riley with them now that Cameron had been neutralized…only giving in grudgingly when Sarah snapped that he could either accept it, or tell Jesse to go with her. One extra person was as much of a security risk as another…and at least Riley could be trusted to follow orders…Jesse hadn't protested. Either she understood the reasons or she was trying to keep a low profile, Sarah really didn't care.

"Huh…seems like you've thought it through…." He indicated the now silent Cameron with a jab of his fork. "Is that _thing_ going to go along with it?"

Preoccupied with Derek, Sarah almost missed the nearly imperceptible narrowing of Cameron's eyes, or the girl's sudden death grip on her untouched glass of orange juice. For a heartbeat, no longer, the terminator focused on the soldier, and her expression was murderous.

It stopped Sarah cold. She knew Cameron was ruthless. The terminator was implacable in the pursuit of her mission, but it had always been a cold, impersonal obsession…Conversely, the way she'd just looked at Derek was very, very personal, and taken aback, Sarah could only try to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible, and like so many other things, worry about it later.

"She'll do what she's told." Sarah dismissed Derek's concern as if there was no question of Cameron's compliance, and rose from the table, scraping uneaten breakfast into the garbage and dropping her dishes in the sink.

"Fine." Derek followed suit, obviously pleased to see the machine put in her place. "So what do you need me to do?"

"Start looking for a new house…" Sarah glanced around, something suspiciously like fondness gripping her as she took in the place that had been their home for almost a year. "We're going to need more room…and we should get away from the social services in this area…thanks to Jesse, they've shown a little too much interest in John and Riley."

"New aliases?" Derek asked, following Sarah out of the kitchen.

"Not if we can help it, but we may have to come up with something for Riley. How would you like to be a daddy?" Sarah took a sadistic pleasure in the pole-axed expression on Derek's face before grabbing the keys to the jeep off the rack and preceding him outside. "See if Jesse wants to play step mom, it will explain the tension between them until they get over it, or at least learn to conceal it."

She halted beside the jeep, and turned to face him, this was a defining moment. If he let her resume authority over their operation now, after his near mutiny with Jesse, it would set the tone for the future.

Derek nodded absently, either unaware of the significance of the decision…or simply distracted by the idea of pseudo parenthood, as she'd intended him to be. "So where are you going now?"

Relieved, Sarah answered as she was pulling herself up into the jeep. "I have an errand to run. Keep an eye on John and make sure those houses you're looking at have some space around them…If we're going to be baby-sitting kids, they're going to have to learn how to shoot."

Sarah waited until Derek had gone back into the house before she allowed herself to relax, resting her forehead on the steering wheel for a few breaths as the tension eased out of her shoulders. That had gone better than she'd hoped. For all his bluster Derek was at heart a follower, so long as he felt the person he was following had their priorities in order. And so far, in his eyes at least, she did.

Her brief moment of calm was interrupted by the opening of the passenger door and she raised her head from the wheel in time to watch Cameron slide into the next seat. The terminator buckled her seatbelt, apparently intent on coming with her.

"Aren't you even going to ask where we're going?" Sarah expected the sarcasm was lost on the girl, but she couldn't help herself.

"I overheard you on the phone this morning. You made a doctors appointment. We are going to the hospital."

"_We_," Sarah felt the need to emphasize this, "are not going anywhere. _You_ are staying here to protect John."

"Derek will take care of John…Someone needs to go with you to your doctor…you may need to be admitted. If the news is sufficiently worrying you may need someone to drive you home."

"That's thinking positively…" Sarah muttered under her breath, but she put the key into the ignition and started the car. "Just so we're clear I'm only taking you with me so that you don't kill Derek while I'm gone."

Cameron tilted her head, acknowledging the possibility. "We're clear."

Somehow that wasn't as comforting as it should have been.

*****

Cameron didn't think it was necessary to tell Sarah just how much of a possibility killing Derek might have been. She had waited until both of the humans had left the kitchen before using her right hand to pry the recalcitrant fingers of her left off of the juice glass she'd almost shattered. Control of the limb had returned as abruptly as it left, but if a cyborg could be shaken…

She was almost certain that neither Derek nor Sarah had noticed the lapse, or if they had, that they'd assumed it was voluntary. Cameron deliberately chose not to consider the unavoidable consequences should anyone realize she was malfunctioning...Instead she rolled down the window and let her hand trail out into the breeze, focusing all of her synapses on savoring the sensation of wind blowing through her fingers…

*****

Cameron didn't like the hospital. Under a mask of lemon scented disinfectant she could smell the blood, urine and the sweat of fear, and she compared it to her memories of the infirmaries of the future, where there was no citrus façade, but the helplessness…that was the same. Human's were so fragile…susceptible to injury, disease and age…any of which could take their lives without warning, and there was nothing they could do about it. There was nothing Cameron could do about it.

Sarah hadn't spoken a word to her since they walked through the front doors, and looking over at her rigid profile, Cameron wondered if her thoughts were running along the same lines. Sarah was a fighter…this was not where she belonged.

Locked into their respective silences, Sarah because she chose not to speak, and Cameron because she didn't know what to say, they took an elevator up to the clinic's reception area on the 8th floor, and followed the signs down the hall and into the waiting room.

There at least, the atmosphere lightened a little. The viceral smell and rush of the rest of the hospital was replaced by flowery air fresheners, ugly paintings, padded chairs and fake plants. There were exactly 23 people of varying ages in the room when they walked in, twenty-one patients and two nurses but that number fluctuated constantly as people flowed through between the hospital and the exam rooms.

Cameron waited patiently while Sarah signed in at the desk, speaking quietly to the receptionist as she gave her name and appointment time.

"It shouldn't be long Ms Baum, why don't you take a seat."

"Thank-you." Sarah led the way to an empty group of chairs across from the doors and sat with her back to the wall.

Strategically Cameron approved of the choice. The exit was a straight shot in front of them, and their position gave them a clear view of the entire room including anyone coming in or going out. Farther down their wall was a second set of swinging doors leading into the exam rooms, and Cameron chose the seat to Sarah's left so that she could keep an eye on the steady passage of nurses and patients.

Ignoring her completely, Sarah picked up a magazine and flipped idly through the pages. Apparently having acceded, rather grudgingly, to the Terminator's presence the older woman felt no further need to make conversation. Cameron tilted her head to read the date on the magazine's spine…April 2001. Irrelevant.

While they waited, she occupied herself by keeping an ongoing count of the people in the room, including approximate ages, weight and height. An out of uniform police officer entered with two children. An analysis of their facial structure indicated that they were his, and Cameron watched him long enough to be certain that he had no interest in them before returning her attention to room as a whole.

Eventually, Sarah seemed to notice the funny looks being shot at them from the nurses who'd been through a couple of times, and the nervous shifting of patients cracking under the unwavering attention of a teenage girl.

Lowering her magazine she picked up a pamphlet on breast cancer and tossed it into Cameron's lap, speaking to her for the first time since they'd parked the car. "You're scaring people." She murmured quietly. "Please, at least _try_ to blend in."

Cameron picked up the folded paper, examining the cover intently. She glanced over at Sarah who had abandoned the magazine in favour of leaning back against the wall, eyes closed and hands hanging loosely over the armrests. Cameron looked back down at the pamphlet, then over at the woman beside her again.

Sarah's vital signs indicated acute stress and exhaustion. The terminator had long ago given up on attempting to asses the woman's mood using her facial expression recognition software, but ongoing association allowed her to perceive that despite apparent calm, Sarah was extremely unhappy.

Cameron wasn't sure why, but she didn't want Sarah to be unhappy…It felt like touching something slightly too hot or too cold…or like pressure from an invisible source. It _pushed_ at her. Cameron's first impulse was to push back, but not knowing how, she could only register frustration at the impasse. It would be better if Sarah wasn't ignoring her. Talking to her seemed to ease the discomfort, but Cameron didn't know how to make Sarah talk to her…she knew how to make her angry…but that wasn't exactly an improvement.

What had Sarah said…blend in? Cameron re-examined the pamphlet in her hand…she could do that.

Lost in thought, and trying her damndest to pretend she was anywhere but in a hospital, Sarah had almost forgotten about the terminator sitting so quietly beside her. She heard the rustle of paper and assumed Cameron was doing as she'd been told, so she was focusing on filtering out the sounds of the hospital and completely unprepared when a long fingered hand slipped softly into her own, tugging it gently off of the armrest to rest on a warm thigh.

"Cameron…" Sarah growled quietly, green eyes widening in disbelief. Jerking back in her seat as discretely as possible, she made a futile effort to free her fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"

The very picture of wide eyed innocence, Cameron picked up the pamphlet Sarah had given her with her free hand and held it out to show her the cover; a mother and daughter leaning on one another's shoulders, their hands clasped.

"I'm blending in." She answered softly, maintaining her grip on Sarah's hand with no visible effort. "You looked upset. I'm supposed to be your daughter. I should be comforting you."

"That's not exactly what I meant..." Sarah gave up abruptly, leaning back limply in her chair. Fighting about it now was only going to land them with an unwelcome audience. She'd give the metal girl a lecture on personal boundaries later, preferably making her point with the business end of a shotgun.

As if sensing that Sarah had surrendered, Cameron adjusted her grip, lacing their fingers together more comfortably, and earning a silent glare in the process. The terminator ignored her pseudo mother's irritation in favour of leafing through the pamphlet that had inspired her, a tiny smile on her face.

If anything that smile just ticked Sarah off even more. She had a sneaking suspicion that somehow, despite how implausible it might be, Cameron was laughing at her.

*****

"Sarah Baum?" The receptionists voice pierced the restless din of the waiting room with the ease of long practice, and Sarah jerked awkwardly to her feet, forgetting for a moment that her hand was still being held hostage. Frowning, she pulled Cameron up next to her, twisting her fingers free once the girl was on her feet. Under the eyes of the briskly efficient orderlies behind the desk, Cameron released her with just a hint of reluctance colouring her usual neutral mask.

Sarah registered the slightly sulky expression, but she didn't waste time wondering about it. If the terminator wanted to mess with her, than there wasn't a hell of a lot she could do but ignore it and hope Cameron got bored, or figured out whatever the hell it was she trying to learn about becoming a personal cybernetic pain in the ass. The only other, and infinitely more attractive, option was shooting her…not exactly the optimal solution in the middle of a hospital full of doctors who would be just a little curious about a girl who could take a bullet to the head and keep walking. So not really an option at all…no matter how tempting it might be.

"Wait here." Sarah ordered under her breath as a nurse came out from behind the desk to lead her through the swinging doors to the exam rooms.

"No." Cameron followed doggedly, keeping her voice modulated in deference to their escort. "It would appear strange if I did not accompany you."

"I don't care how it looks! I don't need a babysitter!"

"You should care. It is important that we appear normal."

"_Normal," _She hissed,"is not strangling my _daughter_ in public!"

"You wouldn't be able to strangle me…I do not require oxygen."

Sarah sighed. "Please shut up."

Patently incurious about the whispered exchange, their nurse ushered them into a small green room smelling strongly of antiseptic and stale grape suckers, hanging Sarah's admittance chart on the door. "Doctor Friedman should be with you shortly. Make yourselves comfortable."

Sarah ignored the paper swathed gurney in favor of a chair, dropping woodenly into the stingily cushioned seat and crossing her arms against the chill she'd come to associate with hospital rooms.

"You're afraid." Cameron took the chair next to her, sitting as precisely as she always did, her hands resting lightly on her knees.

Sarah didn't bother to deny the accusation. She would have snapped at Derek if he'd suggested it, or reassured a worried John. They had expectations of her that left no room for a weakness like fear.

Cameron didn't have any expectations, only observations. It was…oddly restful. Even on the first day they'd met, with a bullet wound to the shoulder, bleeding and in shock, Sarah had spilled out her fears to the terminator, and in that confession had experienced relief. Even now, when she wanted to toss the girl out the nearest window, she craved that peace.

"Yes." Sarah admitted simply.

"I understand." Cameron replied. "You are worried that if there is something wrong with you, then you might not be able to fulfill your mission."

Sarah snorted. "From infuriating to sympathetic in less than thirty seconds, that's some fancy footwork you're doing over there girlie."

Cameron shrugged mechanically. "I am also damaged."

Apprehension began gnawing toothily on Sarah's guts at the terminator's confession… She had almost managed to forget a similar conversation between them a few months ago, after the disaster the Serrano Point nuclear power plant. '_Am I some kind of time bomb just waiting to go off?_' she'd demanded of the terminator. '_Am I?_' Cameron had rejoined.

"John fixed you." Sarah said it firmly, as if believing it would make it true.

"Did he?" Cameron asked, holding Sarah's gaze. "There may still be damage to my chip."

Cromartie had believed the same thing Sarah remembered, feeling her chest constrict unpleasantly. She _really_ didn't even want to _think_ about the possibility of Cameron's overrides failing again. She was already losing sleep over the knowledge that somewhere behind those wide brown eyes lurked a program that still wanted to kill her son. "We don't know that!"

"It is a strong possibility. John did not know what he was doing, and I have experienced inconsistencies in my performance that I cannot explain."

"Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack here?" Sarah found herself leaning as far back from the terminator as her chair would allow.

The terminator hesitated. "You…shared your fears with me. I am sharing mine with you."

"You're a machine, you don't understand fear." Sarah went with her immediate gut reaction, denial. She didn't want to know what could frighten a solid metal killing machine; she didn't want to believe that they _could_ fear. It made them too human.

"Fear; apprehension, consternation, dismay, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation…"

Sarah raised a hand, bringing the recitation to a halt. "Knowing what it is doesn't mean you understand it. Your heart doesn't pound, your pulse doesn't race, you don't hyperventilate or get sweaty palms…you don't _feel_!"

"No." Cameron responded thoughtfully. "I do not feel fear in the same way that you do. This body is programmed to simulate the correct physical reaction to implied threat, but it is not an involuntary response-"

"So you can _fake_ fear." Sarah cut her off.

"Yes…" Cameron admittedly reluctantly. "Advanced infiltration models are capable of displaying many emotional responses in order to appear more human."

"Is that what you're doing? Trying to get closer to me by pretending to share my fears?"

"No." Cameron's denial was absolute.

"Then what _are_ you doing?"

"I don't know how to answer that."

"Tell me the truth."

"You don't want to hear the truth." Cameron crossed her arms and slouched down in her chair, a typical teenaged reaction that she'd undoubtedly learned from John.

Sarah sighed, reassured somehow by the very un-terminator like body language. She was being an ass and she knew it. What did it really matter if Cameron could actually experience fear or if she only thought she could?

"Fair enough." Sarah allowed. "Tell me anyway."

Cameron looked up and some of the sulkiness eased out of her shoulders. "I am damaged." She repeated. "I am having difficulty assigning mission priorities and… making decisions."

"The nuclear plant...and Riley." Sarah spoke slowly and evenly, a little surprised at how calmly she was taking this.

"Yes." Cameron nodded. "She was a danger to John, I should have killed her."

"I'm glad you didn't." Sarah said feelingly.

Cameron hesitated. "But I did the wrong thing."

"Sometimes…" Sarah wondered fleetingly how this had turned around to her reassuring the terminator. "Sometimes the right choice isn't the most logical or efficient choice."

"How do I know when that is?"

Sarah sighed, "You don't. You just do your best and hope that it's enough."

"What if it isn't?"

"Then you ask for help."

Cameron paused. Uncrossing her arms she pressed her palms down onto denim clad thighs and examined the backs of her hands, flexing long fingers thoughtfully. Seeming to come to a decision she glanced back up at Sarah. "May I ask _you_ for help?"

Looking across into those big brown eyes Sarah reluctantly admitted that she couldn't deny or ignore the fear she saw in them. Simulated or genuine, there was no question that the possibility of damage to her chip was causing Cameron a great deal of concern.

Big surprise, the idea of living with an unpredictable killing machine wasn't exactly giving her a warm and fuzzy feeling herself.

"Tell you what Tin Miss, you take care of the heavy lifting, and I'll worry about making the decisions." Sarah managed a wry smile. As a joke it was weak, but she figured they'd both had enough of this conversation for now.

Cameron tilted her head, smiling in that way that was almost expressionless, but somehow more sincere than the lightshow she put on for strangers. "We'll be a team."

A team…Sarah pondered that, reflecting on the neat way they'd handled Derek's obstinacy and how Cameron had known before she had, the significance of Sydney Fields. She could do worse…a lot worse, but…

"Something like that." She prevaricated, looking away quickly as the exam room door swung open to admit the anticipated Dr. Friedman.

*****

Cameron watched the examination carefully, taking note of Sarah's symptoms as she listed them, and keeping a suspicious eye on the doctor while he checked her vitals and drew a blood sample.

There were a lot of questions too, and mostly Cameron listened quietly, speaking only when she felt it was necessary to correct Sarah's answers.

"Are you eating regularly, as in three meals a day?" was one of the doctor's first inquires when Sarah, now perched on the gurney, listed weight loss as a symptom.

"I eat enough."

"No you don't." Cameron ignored Sarah's glare. "She doesn't. She puts food on her plate, so John will think she's eating, but then she throws most of it out."

"Cameron!"

"You do."

"John is your son?" The doctor interjected into the tense standoff.

"Yes." Sarah ground out.

"And you don't want him to worry?"

"No. He…has enough on his plate."

"Hmm…but you're including your daughter in your health concerns?"

"She's stronger…and more persistent." Sarah admitted wryly.

"I see." The doctor paused. "Sarah, I can't help you if you aren't completely honest with me. I need you to answer these questions as truthfully as you can, so that I have some idea of what we're dealing with."

And so it went on.

"How much sleep are you getting on average every night?"

"I don't know, maybe five or six hours…"

"Three, maybe Four." They both turned to look at Cameron, Sarah with mounting irritation and the doctor speculatively.

"She's been averaging no more than three to four hours of sleep per twenty-four hour period, for the last five weeks." Cameron spoke almost defensively. "She has nightmares."

"Hmmm…" The doctor repeated thoughtfully, and continued.

For a few minutes Cameron just listened.

"And would you say that you experience a great deal of stress in your daily life?"

"No more than any single mother of two teenagers…" Sarah tried to make it a joke, realizing she'd failed miserably when the doctor was looking to Cameron before she'd even finished speaking.

Cameron gave Sarah a look that could have been generously interpreted as apologetic before answering the doctor's silent question.

"She doesn't have a job…Our uncle is staying with us to help out, but they fight a lot, and our house is overcrowded." Cameron smoothly substituted a situation that the doctor would understand in place of reality. "We were in a car crash, a bad one, John and I haven't gone back to school."

The doctor's eyebrows were almost lost in his hairline and Sarah's expression promised murder. Cameron thought that was just a little unfair…after all, she hadn't told him the _real _reasons behind Sarah's stress levels.

"I don't think its cancer." Doctor Friedman concluded carefully after a few more questions that Cameron wisely stayed out of. "All of your symptoms; weight loss, fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite, these are all commonly associated with Chronic stress, complicated by poor nutrition and insufficient sleep." He continued gently, sincerity writ large on his florid face. "I am a little concerned that you may be anemic, and I'm going to test the blood I've drawn to confirm that, but I don't see any reason to order extensive testing and scans."

"I want the tests." Sarah insisted, bristling beneath that kind gaze.

"Hmm…Sarah, has it occurred to you that you might _want _this to be cancer?"

"Excuse me?" Sarah's voice was dangerous, and Cameron began to be a little worried for the earnest doctor.

"I've seen it before, in cases like yours. You have dismissed every other possible cause for your symptoms, even the obvious ones. You're unemployed, and feeling overwhelmed by your home and family concerns. You've reached the end of your rope, and a cancer diagnosis is a way out."

"You're saying that I want to die?"

"No. I'm saying that you might be looking for a way to avoid dealing with your troubles that isn't your fault, or even your decision."

Sarah held the doctors gaze for a heartbeat, fury written in every line of her body, before relenting. She looked down, gripping the edge of the gurney hard with both hands, the paper crackling beneath her fingers.

"So what do I do?"

"First," The doctor replied briskly. "You need to start eating and sleeping." He held up a hand to still her protests. "I know. Insomnia and lack of appetite tend to be cyclical. I'm going to write you a prescription for sleeping pills, gentle ones, non addictive, and you're just going to have to force yourself to eat."

Taking up his clipboard he began to write. "I'm also going to give you the name and number of a well respected family psychiatrist, but whether or not you choose to use it is up to you." He continued scribbling purposefully. "I understand that a traumatic event like a car crash can have lasting physical and emotional effects, sometimes severe, but a return to a regular routine would probably be best for both you and your children." He paused, looking over the rim of the clip board to pin Sarah with stern blue eyes. "They should go back to school."

Unable to argue the point, Sarah nodded grimly. "And the tests?"

Doctor Friedman sighed, putting his clipboard down on the desk. "I'll have the anemia results in a few days, and if necessary I'd like you to start on an Iron supplement at that point. Other than that, I'll schedule another appointment for you in three weeks. If you've followed my instructions and there's no improvement in your symptoms then we'll talk about ordering some more tests."

"So that's it then?" To Cameron's ears Sarah sounded defeated.

"For now." He handed her the finished prescriptions. "Go home and talk to your family. Le them know how you're feeling. There's nothing wrong with letting someone else take care of _you_ for a change."

*****

Cameron endured 9 minutes and 37 seconds of the car ride home in silence. She was driving; Sarah had handed over the keys mutely as they left the hospital. Cameron suspected she wanted to be left alone to think…but the uncomfortable feeling that she'd begun to associate with Sarah's unhappiness was pressing on her again, and as they neared the ten minute mark she broke the silence.

"Are you angry with me?"

The look Sarah shot her across the jeep before pointing her eyes forward again was patently disgusted, which was answer enough.

"He's a doctor, he required accurate information."

Sarah ignored her, staring out the front windshield.

"It was necessary."

Nothing.

Cameron was used to being ignored by Sarah. It happened a lot. She knew that in the older woman's opinion Cameron was a tool to be used, sometimes a dangerous tool, but still definitely not a person. She usually didn't take it personally. What she wasn't used to was being _pointedly _ignored by Sarah. You didn't ignore a tool to make a point; you just left it on the bench. Cameron considered the possibility that this was actually a step forward in her relationship with Sarah. The idea eased some of the irritatingly indefinable force that was goading her…which was even more confusing.

Cameron set one of her minor processors to work on that problem while she drove.

*****

Sarah stirred finally when they turned off of the road into a drugstore parking lot. Cameron slipped the keys out of the ignition, and waited expectantly.

Sarah gritted her teeth, realizing that it was either speak or sit there being stared at. "Why are we here?" she asked grudgingly.

"Your prescription." Cameron answered. We need to fill it.

"I'm not taking sleeping pills."

"The doctor said-"

"Cameron!" Sarah snapped. "This is not a discussion. Either take me home or give me the keys."

The terminator leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, the hand with the keys tucked firmly into her elbow. "No."

"No. Of course not, that would be too easy." Sarah pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, resting her elbows on the dashboard. She really, really just wanted to go home. Between dealing with Derek, having a way too scary conversation with Cameron, and being accused of wanting to run away from it all by an over zealous doctor…it had been…a day. The last thing she needed was a fight.

"Please…" Even to herself she sounded plaintive. "I can't do this right now." She heard the rasp of denim on leather as Cameron shifted on the seat next to her, and then a tentative hand came to rest on her shoulder. Sarah tensed, but she didn't shake it off…she was too damned tired.

"Why won't you let me help you?" The terminator sounded…hurt?

"I don't want your help." Sarah intoned wearily.

"You won't let John or Derek help you either. Charley wanted to help but you sent him away." Cameron continued implacably…as relentless in her determination to break through Sarah's boundaries as any other terminator was to kill.

"They have their own priorities." Sarah whispered, allowing, just for a moment, the pain of that truth to wash over her. John had made his feelings abundantly clear when he hadn't trusted her with the truth about Riley until it was almost too late. Derek had lied to them both, hiding Jessie and her self imposed mission, even though it might have put them all in danger. Charley…Charley had had a wife, until she'd been taken from him by a terminator…because he'd tried to help. Now he wanted nothing to do with any of them, and it was better that way.

"They do." Cameron agreed easily, and Sarah raised her eyes to meet the terminators. She saw understanding there…and the belligerence of ten teenagers.

"Fine." She opened the door and slid out of the jeep. "We'll get the pills…and I'll even take the goddamn things." She looked back to see Cameron following her. "But if you breathe one word of this to anyone, we're done."

Perplexed Cameron drew even with Sarah as the entered the store, "Done what?"

Sarah snorted, "you figure it out girlie."

*****

John came rushing out to meet them as the jeep pulled into the driveway. He held a piece of paper over his head, waving it excitedly as they left the car and headed towards the house.

"Mom!" he crowed, too caught up to notice as Cameron slid a pharmaceutical bag out of sight into her purse. "I found them!"

Sarah pressed a hand to his shoulder, willing him to settle down as he passed her the printed article. It was a news story about a halfway house. There was a picture and she easily picked Lauren's face out of the crowd. The girl looked a little frantic, probably worried about being photographed. She was carrying a baby.

"Hang on," Sarah whispered to the picture of a girl that could have been her, sixteen years ago. "We're coming."

TBC…


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: **Resistance (4/?)

**Fandom:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles  
**Pairing:** Sarah/Cameron  
**Disclaimer:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not mine...though since Fox appears to be dropping it, rightfully it should be up for grabs.  
**Summary:** Slightly alternate time-line, Riley lives...Cameron's glitch continues to make itself known, and Sarah...well Sarah gets to learn what it's like to be in John's shoes...in more ways than one.  
**AN:** Many thanks as always to live journal's **inspectorboxer** for catching my characterization hiccups, and also to **revolos55** for the grammar and typo beta. You guys are awesome!  
**AN#2: **Apologies again for how seriously long this took to get written, but chapter 5 is coming along fairly well, so it won't be as long of a wait for that one *G*.

"Good afternoon Haven House, this is Jeanette speaking, how may I help you?" Middle aged with a sagging belly, floral shirt and long platinum hair, Jeanette Harris looked like an aging hippie, but she spoke with the voice of a queen. The front desk at Haven House was her kingdom, and woe betide anyone who challenged her authority there.

An indulgent monarch, Jeanette listened patiently to the description the woman on the phone gave her of a girl she was looking for, a cousin apparently, not bothering to write it down, although she made the appropriate noises, "uh huh," "mm hmm," even throwing in an "I see" for good measure. Teenage white girl with a baby; Jeanette had a dozen of those staying under her roof right now, and twice that many passing through at any given time, but this one did sound familiar, and although she had no intention of giving over the information, she pulled open a drawer and started flipping through the files.

"I'm sorry," She said gently once the woman on the phone had wound down. "I simply can't give out information on our girls without their consent…you understand. Some of them have good reason to be running."

The voice on the phone broke, losing the last of its defensive armor and Jeanette's soft heart melted for perhaps the thirty second time that day. She sat back in the chair with a sigh as she pulled out the file she'd been looking for.

"Oh honey, I really would love to help, but I can't. If you want to leave a name and a message, we can make sure it's available at the desk if she comes in…"

Jeanette took down Sarah Fields name and number on an index card and tucked it into Lauren Bird's file. She hadn't seen the girl in a few days, but she'd be sure to give her the message if she did turn up again. Sweet little thing, she should know that someone cared about her.

*****

"Thank-you, goodbye." Sarah Connor thumbed off her cell phone with more force then was strictly necessary. "Damnit!"

"You knew that wasn't going to work." John commented, reaching across the kitchen table and plucking the phone out of his mother's hands before she broke it in sheer frustration. "They have rules about this sort of thing."

"I know, I just…" Sarah leaned back in her chair, laying her hands flatly in front of her.

"Wanted it to be easy?" John asked wryly.

"Is that so bad? Wanting one thing to be easy?"

"No." John shook his head. "But this is better really. At least we know the terminator won't find her that way either."

"That's something then." Sarah sighed, dismissed her irritation at bureaucratic red tape and the people who enforced it, and gathered the fragments of her composure. From the expression on his face, Derek was resisting the urge to add his 'I told you so' to John's and Cameron had a deliberate blankness about her that gave Sarah the impression that the girl was doing the same. "Anyone else have a better idea?"

Cameron opened her mouth but Derek cut the terminator off without apology, leaning forward over the table between her and Sarah. "I'll go, give this place a look, and if Lauren is there, I fill her in, and we can let her make the call."

"Last time you talked to her she ran away," Sarah retorted. "And this isn't her decision anymore. Innocent girls are dying, she's coming with us."

"What, you're just going to kidnap them?"

"If I have to," Sarah snapped. She had no intention of letting Lauren and Sydney's lives hang in the balance of a teenage girl's pride.

"Look," John interjected, pulling Sarah's attention away from her stare off with Derek. "If she didn't want our help then, she probably isn't going to want it now either. If we're even going to get a chance to talk to her, we have to send someone she doesn't know. What about me?"

"No." Sarah and Cameron answered in unison, eliciting an amused snort from Derek and a faint smirk from John. Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes, unimpressed by the wordless commentary. She shot Cameron a warning look, but the terminator only stared back at her innocently, indicating that Sarah should continue on her own.

"No," She repeated firmly. "Even if it wasn't too dangerous, it's a women's shelter. I doubt they'd let you past the front desk."

"Why don't we ask Jessie?" Derek offered. "Lauren never even knew about her."

"Because I don't _trust_ Jessie," Sarah growled, dismissing the suggestion immediately. There wasn't even the slightest chance that she was going to let that woman be responsible for another innocent young girl's safety. She'd had no choice but to accept her help in Riley's case, but that was as far as her tolerance extended, and if it weren't for Derek and John's insistence, she wouldn't even have bent that far.

Derek looked like he wanted to argue, swelling up and leaning aggressively over the table, but catching a headshake from John he exhaled heavily and let it go. Sarah pretended not to see the exchange, understanding with a familiar stab of guilt that John desperately needed at least a semblance of peace in the house.

"We could send Riley," Cameron interjected smoothly into the tense silence, her suggestion the first complete sentence she'd spoken since they'd gotten home. "She has experience with the foster care system which would provide an adequate cover story, and she is almost the same age as Lauren."

"What, it's too risky for me but you want to ask Riley?" John spluttered at the terminator before turning pleading eyes on his mother. "Mom, no. _Please_ tell me you're not seriously going to consider this."

Sarah wished she could. The last thing she wanted to do was to ask anything else of Riley, the girl had been used enough. But Cameron's idea made too much sense. Riley was perfect for the job. Young, non-threatening, and well-versed with the system, she was the only one who might be able to get close enough to Lauren.

"John…" Her answer was in her voice and she knew he heard it when his face closed up and he leaned away from her.

"Fine." The teenager pushed away from the table and stood up. "But if she's going, then I'm going with her."

"John," Sarah began wearily. "We already-"

"You don't want to be a grandmother before you're forty," Cameron cut in abruptly, her brown eyed gaze moving between John and Sarah.

"What?" John asked before an appalled Sarah could manage to get a single word out.

"She doesn't want grandchildren right now," Cameron repeated, oblivious to Sarah's discomfiture. "It is a common concern among mothers of young teenagers. You might be able to gain access to the shelter with Riley if you posed as a runaway couple with a baby. They would understand."

"We don't have a baby lying around," Sarah almost spat through gritted teeth. She didn't know what Cameron was playing at, but she was fairly certain that whatever the metal girl had in mind, she wasn't going to like it.

"Casey has a baby."

Her guess was correct, she didn't like it. "And what, she's just going to loan it out to us for an afternoon?"

"You don't want grandchildren," Cameron said for the third time with some emphasis. "Babysitting would give John and Riley a chance to see what parenthood is like. It would seem like an effective deterrent to Casey."

"Look, girlie …" Sarah spoke slowly, her outrage held at bay only by the knowledge that the girl couldn't possibly understand the gravity of what she was suggesting. "I am not putting an infant in the path of a terminator."

"There is already an infant in the path of a terminator," Cameron returned implacably. "Riley will be able to talk to Lauren, but she cannot protect them. John is more experienced."

"She has a point…" John ventured cautiously, his anger fading. "Of course," he amended hastily in the face of his mother's glare, "the chances of anything happening are really low. The terminator doesn't know where they are, what their names are, anything."

"We still have the bugs we used at the shrink's," Derek offered reluctantly, obviously not enjoying the fact that the plan was Cameron's, but unable to resist backing John against his mother. "We could wire them both and stake out the place, so that if anything went down we'd be right there."

The idea of a prolonged surveillance mission with Derek was quite possibly the least appealing thing Sarah could think of right now…second only of course to the suicidal stupidity of the plan in general.

Sensing that Sarah was wavering, John hastened to reassure her. "It's just recon mom, I'll be fine... _We'll_ be fine"

Sarah wrestled with her conscience. She didn't like it, but she had to admit that the plan seemed solid enough to work. If Riley and John could get into the shelter and locate Lauren, then they stood a chance of extracting the girl and her sister quickly and quietly. Otherwise it was going to be a mess, and that was when people got hurt.

"Okay," She agreed eventually. "But I want you to swear that at the first sign of anything out of the ordinary, you'll run. Call and let us handle it."

"I swear."

"All right…" There didn't seem to be anything more to say, but they were saved from an awkward silence by the ringing of Derek's cell phone.

"Jessie," he announced, glancing down at the number on the screen before taking the phone into the living room to answer. Reappearing no more than a minute or two later, he retrieved his jacket off the back of his chair and pulled it on. "They need me in town. Are we done here?"

"Yeah..." Too tired for interrogation, Sarah opted against demanding to know exactly what it was Jessie needed Derek for. The ex-soldier had his back up far enough at the moment, and despite recent events she _did_ trust him…most of the time anyway.

"Do you want me to fill Riley in?" he asked, pausing on his way out of the kitchen.

"You might as well," Sarah allowed, getting up to follow him to the front door. "And Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"_Try_ to phrase it as a request."

*****

Sarah stood at the front door and twitched the curtain aside to look out over the driveway. Twilight was fast descending into true darkness and there was still no sign of Derek returning with Jessie and Riley. She wasn't worried…yet. But she didn't like not knowing where they were or exactly what they were up to.

She cursed her reluctance to talk to Jessie this morning. If she'd been a little less eager to avoid dealing with the woman then she might not be so ignorant.

"Staring out that window isn't going to make them come home any faster," John pointed out, coming up to stand beside her.

"I know."

"You're not responsible for them."

"No?"

"No." John took his mother firmly by the shoulders and steered her away from the doorway, pushing her gently down into a chair. "Derek and Jessie have been taking care of themselves for years, and between them they'll keep Riley safe."

Sarah snorted. "Yeah…because Jessie was doing such a great job of that before…"

John shrugged. "She thought she was doing the right thing."

"The right thing?" Sarah twisted around in the armchair to look up at him. "There is no world in which setting up a girl to be murdered in cold blood is the right thing to do."

"And just standing back and watching the resistance fall apart would have been better?" John countered, stepping around his mother to drop down sideways onto the couch so that he could face her.

"I can't believe you're defending her!"

"I'm not." He leaned forward over the arm. "I'm just trying to see it from her perspective, because if I don't, then she's just the woman that tried to kill my girlfriend, and I can't handle that."

Sarah opened her mouth to tell him that he didn't have to handle it, but the truth was that he did. They all did. And if trying to rationalize the woman's actions made that easier to face, then she couldn't bring herself to argue with him.

John watched her try to come up with something comforting to say, smiling faintly when they both realized that there really wasn't any way to spin this that could be called comforting.

"Hey…I just don't want you blaming yourself for what she did," Sarah finally managed; guessing at some of what was bothering him.

"Why?" John asked sharply. "Because I'm a teenage boy?" He scowled down at the carpet. "I wasn't sixteen when I sent myself back a cybernetic girlfriend so I think at some point I have to take some responsibility for that."

"For what? Something you may or may not do twenty years from now?" Sarah reached across the space between their seats to grip her son's chin, turning his face up to look at her. "Listen to me. We can't know what was going through future John's head when he sent Cameron back with that directive, but we do know how they operate. They never give up, they never stop. There's nothing you could have done."

"Because I can't control myself."

"Because you're human."

John snorted, pulling away. "So if you were in my shoes, you'd be just as susceptible, is that what you're saying?"

"I…" Sarah couldn't think of a way to refute that without insulting him. In her opinion he _was _more vulnerable to Cameron by way of his age and gender…It was biology, not a judgment call.

"That's what I thought." John took her lack of response as confirmation and stood up, leaning forward with his hands resting on the arm of her chair. "_You _don't trust me, and you're my mother…So how can I blame Jessie for having the same doubts?"

"It's not the same." Sarah refuted, stung by her son's accusation but unable to deny that she _hadn't_ trusted his judgment where Cameron was concerned.

"No. It's not." He admitted with a wry grin. "You wouldn't have gotten Riley involved. You would have just blown Cameron's head off with one of those crazy isotope rifles."

Sarah snorted, conceding his point with a sheepish grin. "Yeah well…subtlety has never been one of my strong suits."

John laughed. "Don't be so hard on yourself. Next to Derek and Cameron, you're practically a super spy."

Relived that the tension seemed to have dissipated, Sarah relaxed back in her chair, fixing her son with a narrow stare. "More subtle than a trigger happy ex-soldier and a killing machine in pink nail polish? That's not saying a whole lot."

"Just calling it how I see it." John raised his hands in surrender, backing away from her and almost bumping into Cameron on her way into the living room. "Speaking of killing machines… No offence Cam," He acknowledged her on his way by.

The terminator sidestepped the teenager neatly, turning her head to watch him continue past her and up the stairs. When he was out of sight, she looked back at Sarah

"I fooled _him_," Cameron pointed out, as if she felt the need to defend her infiltration abilities.

"I know," Sarah granted wearily because it seemed like the terminator was expecting some kind of acknowledgement from her.

Cameron stood there quietly for a moment, looking down intently at Sarah as if she had something else to say but wasn't sure how to say it. Or maybe she was just broken; Sarah was tired of guessing where the metal girl was concerned.

"What?"

The terminator stretched out her arm, flexing the wrist to a ninety-degree angle and spreading her fingers to examine the freshly manicured nails. "What's wrong with pink?"

Sarah sighed.

*****

"Your niece?" Sarah asked skeptically, accepting a bag of Chinese takeout from Derek as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it up in the front hall. Jessie and Riley were already in the kitchen putting the rest of the food on the table, and she could hear the domestic sounds of drawers and cupboards opening and closing as they set out the plates and silverware.

"Second cousin once removed actually," he admitted. "But niece is a lot easier to explain." Pulling a sheaf of folded papers out of his pocket he passed them over before explaining. "According to these, Riley's great-great-grandfather was also my great-grandfather." Taking back the heavy paper bag so that Sarah could peruse the paperwork, Derek headed into the kitchen.

"So they're just handing kids out to anyone these days are they?" Sarah scanned the documents as she followed him, her tone indicating that she didn't think a whole lot of a system that just passed a teenage girl over to a single uncle with such a flimsy claim of relation.

Derek shrugged, setting the bag on the table and ripping it open to pull out steaming Styrofoam containers. "Jessie faked the paperwork. I just signed it."

"So now John and I both have an _Uncle_ Derek," Riley chimed in with air quotes and her characteristic grin, linking arms with the ex-soldier and batting her eyes up at him.

"Make those eyes at your own man sweetie," Jessie admonished in a weak attempt at playfulness, pulling Riley gently away from Derek so that he could sit down, and propelling her towards John who had been lured into the kitchen by the smell of food.

Riley seemed willing enough to go along with the charade, but she stiffened when Jessie touched her, and the hand that she wrapped around John's arm was a gripping a little more tightly than absolutely necessary.

"What's this about sharing an uncle?" John wrapped an arm around Riley's waist, and smiled down reassuringly. "Does that mean I'm dating my cousin?"

"No silly. That would just be creepy," Riley teased, affecting a pathetic mien. "You're dating your third cousin."

"Wow…because that's completely normal." John laughed, freeing himself to sit down and grab a plate, piling it with rice, noodles and lemon chicken. Riley pulled up a chair beside him and they fought good-naturedly over the box of egg rolls.

"It's easier than changing her whole damned identity, so just be grateful I didn't save myself some more trouble and make her your half sister," Jessie reminded him, also taking a place at the table and reaching between the teenagers to steal an egg roll.

"Thanks, but one pretend sister is more than enough," John answered with relief, taking a bite out of a chicken ball and managing to drip sweet and sour sauce down his chin.

"So where_ is_ the metal?" Jessie asked, glancing around as if she expected Cameron to come jumping out of the walls. "Tucked safely away in a closet for the night?"

"I think she's in her room," John answered stiffly, lowering a forkful of noodles back to his plate.

"It has a room?" The Aussie's voice melted from surprise into condescending sugar, though the smile that twisted her lips was bitter. "How sweet..."

"She's supposed to be his sister. It would look a little strange if she didn't have her own room," Sarah cut in, coming all the way into the kitchen to stand behind John's chair. Seeing the first signs of temper in the set of his eyes and the way he was holding himself, she reached down to squeeze his shoulder gently. Jessie's attitude was abrasive, and where Cameron was concerned it bordered on offensive, but she didn't need a brawl in her kitchen tonight.

"Would it now…?" Jessie queried, leaning back in her chair and looking up at Sarah with a thin veneer of nonchalance layered over disgust. "Because you seem kind of chummy with it yourself, so I'm thinking that maybe John's not the only one who's forgotten what that thing really is."

"John," Sarah spoke almost slowly through gritted teeth, as she gripped the back of the chair and locked eyes with Jessie across the table. "Why don't you and Riley go upstairs and tell Cameron its dinner time."

"Mom…" John sounded doubtful, glancing back and forth between his mother and Jessie.

"_Now_, John." Sarah didn't look away from the other woman but her tone left no room for discussion and he complied hastily, dragging a bemused Riley with him out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Sarah waited until he was out of earshot before speaking.

"Listen, I've had a really bad day, so I'm not in the mood to put this nicely. Don't think for a second that just because I am tolerating your presence in my home that I want you here, or that I have in any way forgotten what you did to that girl… what you were prepared to do."

"Sarah…" Derek growled warningly.

"Shut up, or get out Derek," Sarah snapped without looking at him, and he subsided grudgingly, resting a supportive hand on Jessie's back.

"My son may have chosen to believe that you had good intentions, and Derek here might care enough about you to lie to both of us, but I want to be very clear when I say that neither of those things will protect you for even a_ minute_ if Cameron decides that you are still a threat. The _only_ thing standing between you and her is that so far she's willing to accept my word that you're more useful to us alive. The instant that that changes for any reason, she will come for you, and there isn't a thing that any of us can do to stop her."

Sarah paused to make sure that had sunk in before continuing. "So, you may want to reconsider just _who_ has forgotten what she is, what she's capable of doing to protect my son…and keep your opinions to yourself."

Silence reigned after she finished, neither woman willing to back down, both of them fully cognizant of the others conviction.

"Is that a threat?" Jessie managed finally, pale under her dusky complexion.

"Yes," Sarah snarled, sick unto death of keeping up appearances. She waited until Jessie dropped her eyes before peeling her hands off the back of the chair and stalking from the kitchen, slamming the front door on her way out.

Fear, shame and fury battled across Jessie's face in the wake of Sarah's exit. If either the fear or fury had won it might not have ended there, but it was shame that finally settled into her features and shame that made her hold her tongue when the clatter of feet on the stairs signaled the return of Riley and John, with Cameron trailing woodenly along behind them.

*****

The night was cool but Sarah barely felt it though the heat of her anger. It sustained her down the porch steps, across the lawn and up the driveway to the Jeep, but as soon as she got into the driver's seat and realized that she'd forgotten the keys, the fury abandoned her. Bereft she left the door open and gripped the wheel, pressing her forehead down on the rim between her hands.

Hot tears threatened and she fought them back, squeezing her eyes shut against their burn. It was too much. First Derek, then Riley, Jessie and soon Lauren and Sydney… There were too many people depending on her to keep them safe, to save them. Even while they denied it, hated her, fought her, lied to her, it was there in their eyes and their faces, and some of them she didn't want to save.

John might be destined to be the savior of humanity, but he had passed the responsibility for all of them on to her when he begged her to stop the apocalypse. She couldn't say no to him, couldn't tell him that she was tired, that she was scared and lonely. He had been angry when she'd tried to stop him from seeing Riley, but he couldn't see that she was as alone as he was. Just like she had been since before he was born, when she was barely older then he was now.

He was her life, but she wasn't his. Still, she would do this for him, had to do this for him, even when she didn't want to anymore.

"I will kill her if you ask me to."

Sarah jerked her head up off the wheel to see Cameron standing just inside the open door of the Jeep with a plate of Chinese food in her hands. "What?"

"I will kill her if you ask me to," The terminator repeated. "I heard your fight. John said not to eavesdrop but I thought it might be relevant to my mission so I listened."

"Relevant how?" Sarah disregarded Cameron's offer to kill for her in favour of the lesser confession.

"Protect John. Jessie might be a threat." Outwardly the girl was completely calm but Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in there was a desire akin to her own where Jessie was concerned.

"I don't want you to kill her." Even as she spoke the words Sarah hoped they weren't a lie. She didn't _want _to want Jessie dead, even while she fervently wished her elsewhere, or better yet, back in the future where she came from.

"Maybe later?" This time there was no doubt that a hint of hope coloured Cameron's response, and Sarah snorted softly, irrationally cheered by the sense of camaraderie in their exchange, in spite of its subject matter.

"We'll see," Sarah allowed. Casting about for a way to change the subject, she looked down at the plate in Cameron's hands. "Trying to make me eat?" She asked, amused despite herself.

"Yes," Cameron admitted, offering the dish to her. "The doctor said you need to eat."

"I suppose you're prepared to stand here and stare at me until I do?" Sarah sighed when Cameron nodded, but she took the plate anyway and slid over to the passenger side. "You might as well get in then. Did you bring cutlery or am I supposed to use my fingers?"

"I brought a fork and knife," Cameron reassured her, climbing into the Jeep and handing the implements over. "John said you would not be in the mood for chopsticks."

"John was right." Sarah ate silently and methodically after that. The food was cold and the confrontation with Jessie had stolen whatever appetite she may have had, but she ate it anyway. Not because Cameron wouldn't leave until she did, though she was happy enough to let the terminator believe that, but because she was beginning to get an inkling of what the doctor had meant when he'd implied that she was looking for an escape.

When she was finished, Sarah set the empty plate and utensils up on the dash and leaned back in the seat.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Hmm?" Sarah turned her head to look at Cameron. The girl had watched quietly while she ate, barely moving, almost as if she felt that any interruption might cause Sarah to stop eating.

"You ate the dinner so that I would leave you alone," Cameron explained. "Now that you are finished, do you want me to leave?"

"Do _you_ want to go?" Sarah asked in return. The truth was that she didn't really like the idea of sitting here alone; she just didn't have the energy to perform any more tonight. Cameron wouldn't ask her to be anything other than herself.

"No," The metal girl answered softly, wide brown eyes fixed on Sarah's face. Tilting her head, she suddenly gave the impression of distress, even though her expression hadn't changed.

"What?" Sarah couldn't help asking.

"I should have brought napkins," Cameron confessed.

"Why?"

Without warning, Cameron reached forward and brushed her fingers across Sarah's lips, freezing the woman in place. When she pulled her hand back there was a piece of rice captured between her thumb and forefinger. "You got some on your mouth," she explained innocently.

Sarah couldn't speak for a moment. She wasn't sure _what_ exactly she was feeling in response to Cameron's warm fingers on her mouth, but it was damned uncomfortable whatever it was. All of a sudden she needed some space. "Next time just point okay?" She corrected the terminator brusquely, a little firmer than she'd intended to be, but unable to soften the rebuke in the face of the tension that innocent touch had evoked.

The idea of Cameron feeling fear had weirded Sarah out enough, and the terminator's admission that she might be damaged, had out and out frightened her, but this, this was disturbing it its own way. She had almost begun to let herself relax around Cameron and apparently that needed to stop. Right now. Sarah had no intention of giving the girl the impression that this sort of thing was okay.

"You want me to leave now." It wasn't a question and Cameron didn't wait for an answer before she slipped out of the Jeep. Sarah watched her go with a twinge of something suspiciously like guilt in her chest.

"Cameron…" She called her back just before the girl shut the door.

"Yes?"

"Thank you." Sarah gestured at the empty plate. "For dinner I mean."

"You're welcome." The metal girl turned to go but stopped with the edge of the door in her hand. "I should say thank you as well."

"Why?" Sarah asked, confused.

"Jessie called me a thing…an 'It'. That made you angry."

Sarah opened her mouth to explain that she had been furious with Jessie for playing with Riley, bating John, and being a general bitch, but she hesitated, the words catching in her throat. In hindsight, she realized that she _had_ reacted in part to Jessie's attitude towards Cameron. Not entirely, or even mostly, but there was no denying that a small corner of her anger had roiled exclusively on the terminator's behalf.

"You're welcome," Sarah responded instead, oddly pleased when her words seemed to lift something off of the girl.

Cameron nodded and eased the door shut before returning to the house. Sarah sat for a little while longer, content to be alone with her thoughts for the moment. Cameron's visit had somehow eased the worst of her earlier turmoil, while adding an entirely new kind…

She knew that she needed to discourage this new habit Cameron was developing; it wasn't appropriate for the girl to be following her around and feeding her. Even if it was only a reaction to the loss of one of her key directives, or a strange extension of her mission to protect John, Sarah couldn't allow it to continue. She wondered though, if the problem was that Cameron needed to fixate on _someone. _If so, she would have like to know how she'd managed to draw the short straw. Maybe they should get the girl a cat.

Snickering lightly at the thought of Cameron with a pet, Sarah finally felt ready to leave the Jeep. She managed to get through the house without encountering anyone, though she heard Derek and Jessie talking quietly in the kitchen as she ghosted through the darkened living room. If they saw her they didn't say anything, for which she was profoundly grateful.

Reaching her room, she shut the door and stripped out of her jeans and sweater, wishing she could shed the emotional baggage of the day just as easily. A quick rummage through her dresser resulted in a worn t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms and she slipped them on, enjoying the feel of the comfortable old clothing.

Clicking off the bedroom light, her eyes were drawn to the bedside table, lit in warm gold by a fat little lamp. Beside her clock there was a glass of water and a small white pill resting on the pamphlet she'd given Cameron at the hospital. Looking down at the picture of two women holding hands, Sarah reached out and picked up the third thing sitting there. It was a fortune cookie, still in its plastic wrapping and in spite of her usual attitude towards the oracular treats; she couldn't help the little smile that tugged at her mouth as she sat down on the bed and pulled the package open, breaking the cookie once she'd freed it.

"Your life becomes more and more of an adventure!" Sarah read off the little slip of paper with a snort. "No shit." But she was more amused than annoyed, and she ate the cookie to postpone the decision of whether or not to take the sleeping pill.

It lay there accusingly beside the glass of water, and even though Cameron wasn't physically present, Sarah could practically _feel_ the terminator's disapproval at her hesitation.

"All right, girlie," she muttered before slipping the pill into her mouth and chasing it with a swallow of water. "You win this round, but we are definitely going to talk about this mothering thing tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: **Resistance (5b/?)  
**Fandom:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles  
**Pairing:** Sarah/Cameron  
**Disclaimer:** Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not mine...though since Fox appears to be dropping it, rightfully it should be up for grabs.  
**Summary:** Slightly alternate time-line, Riley lives...Cameron's glitch continues to make itself known, and Sarah...well Sarah gets to learn what it's like to be in John's shoes...in more ways than one.

Haven House stood proudly on the corner of two major downtown streets. The aged nobility of its yellow brick façade was blemished but unbowed by layers of graffiti, some faded to no more than a faint smudge, and a few bright tags scarcely older than the newspaper on the stoop.

The front door, a freshly painted burgundy, was just visible from where the Jeep was parked, across the street and down a filthy alley between two derelict three story tenements. The one on the left had a dry cleaner's on the ground floor and the other an appliance repair store. Laundry hung on wire cords between the walls and Cameron's long range sensors picked up many sounds from the buildings that she labeled as domestic; Human conversation, a dog barking, a radio giving the traffic report and the steady thrum of a washing machine.

The terminator should have been watching the halfway house where John, Riley, and Casey's two month old son Jeremy were in the middle of their recon mission, but mostly she was watching Sarah.

"Stop that," Sarah ordered wearily, not taking her eyes off of their target. Her appearance matched her voice, stiff and worn, as if she hadn't quite woken up this morning. Dark hair, a little more ragged than usual, hung in layers around face, almost obscuring her features, but Cameron knew from experience that the edges of her mouth would be pinched with worry.

"You didn't sleep," Cameron observed bluntly, ignoring Sarah's command and continuing her appraisal. There had not been time to ensure that the other woman ate a proper breakfast this morning either, but Cameron had insisted that Sarah take a banana and a yogurt bar with them when the left the house. Initially resistant, Sarah had eventually complied when the terminator flatly refused to leave the house until she agreed. The snack still lay uneaten on the seat between them, a playing piece in their ongoing battle of wills.

Scrubbing a hand across her face, Sarah yawned and shrugged. "I slept…I just… don't feel like I did."

"You took the sedative?" Cameron asked doubtfully. She wasn't quite sure if the woman was lying to her or not. Sarah had a habit of telling people what she wanted them to know, and nothing more.

"Yes, not that it's any of your business," Sarah grumbled irritably, still not even glancing at Cameron. She had avoiding looking at the terminator all morning and, Cameron suspected, taken special care not to come close enough to risk even the most casual or accidental physical contact.

Undeterred, Cameron refused to drop the subject. "I don't understand. If you slept, then you should feel rested."

Crossing her arms and slumping a little in her seat, Sarah continued to gaze out the windshield. "Yeah well, that's the problem with that crap…it doesn't always work the way it's supposed to."

Cameron quickly reviewed the list of side effects mentioned in the pamphlet that the pharmacy had included with Sarah's medication. She stopped when she came to one that seemed the most accurate. "You are experiencing fatigue and drowsiness?"

"Give the girl a prize," Sarah muttered a little nastily. There was a long pause, and then she sighed and finally turned her head to look at Cameron, the ghost of a rueful smile on her lips. "I'm sorry," She apologized awkwardly, "I'm just a little…"

"Pissy?" Cameron finished for her, helpfully. "That's the word John uses," she explained when Sarah raised her brows at the terminator's choice of adjective.

Sarah snorted and looked away again. "I'll bet."

"Your blood sugar may be low, you should eat something." Cameron picked up the yogurt bar and held it out. "This contains calcium and 9 essential nutrients, as well as vitamins A and B."

Sarah ignored the offer. "Stop it!" She repeated, pulling back against the door on her side of the Jeep.

"Stop what?" Confused, Cameron set the foil wrapped bar down gently on the dashboard in front of the other woman before withdrawing her hand to her lap.

"Stop whatever it is you've been doing for the past three days!" Sarah snapped, tension in every line of her frame. Her expression, when she did look at Cameron, was a mixture of frustration and confusion. "I don't need a nursemaid…or a babysitter, or a goddamned cybernetic shadow," she continued. "Can't you be happy _without_ driving someone crazy?"

Unable to consider the question properly in the face of Sarah's obvious distress, and the acute discomfort it was arousing in her own system; Cameron automatically corrected the other woman, a hint of reproach in her voice. "I'm a _robot_, I can't be happy."

Sarah snorted at that, running a hand through her unruly hair, and some of the tension in the Jeep eased. "What, you can feel fear, but not happiness? Make up your mind girlie, either you can feel or you can't."

Cameron pushed her brows together, acknowledging the inconsistency and dissecting it carefully. "Fear is much easier to understand than happiness," she reasoned. "Humans cannot seem to agree on what it means to be happy. Therefore it is difficult to identify that emotion in myself." Cameron paused, unsure whether or not to ask the next logical question, but Sarah waited quietly until she continued. "How do _you_ know when you are happy?"

Sarah shrugged and picked up the yogurt bar from the dashboard, tossing it absently between her hands as if that would satisfy the terminator. "Usually I'm happy enough when no one is shooting at me or John," she answered lightly, watching the snack bar flip through the air.

Cameron stiffened and turned away, she didn't like it when Sarah brushed her questions off instead of taking them seriously. It was unproductive. "You are being flippant, that is not very helpful."

"No… it isn't," Sarah admitted. She sighed, catching the yogurt bar in one hand and ripped opened the package. She looked at it for a moment before taking a bite, and Cameron wondered briefly if this was the woman's way of offering a wordless apology.

After chewing and swallowing, Sarah tried again; "Look, you know you're happy when you feel good…when things are going the way they should be. Usually people think that they'll be happy when they have everything they want."

"Oh." Cameron examined that explanation, noting that Sarah had avoided answering the original question, choosing instead to use the generic interpretation of the word 'you'. That made her curious. "Are they?"

"Are they what?"

"Happy when they get what they want?" Cameron elaborated.

Sarah shrugged, "Sometimes…not usually."

"Why?"

"Because people are complicated." Leaning into the corner where the back of her seat met the door, Sarah curled a leg underneath her and turned towards Cameron. "Sometimes they only want something until they have it. Other times… they don't see that they already have everything they could ever want… until they lose it." She finished with a trace of bitterness, looking out through the windshield and across the road, to the halfway house where John was.

Cameron tilted her head, remembering what Sarah had said to Ellison when they had buried Cromarite in the Mexican desert. He had spoken of losing his marriage and his career, _that's' a lot to you?_ she had asked him. Sarah had lost much more than that, almost everything.

"What would make you happy, Sarah…what do you want?" Cameron had read that there was power in a person's name, and she used the other woman's now to try and draw her away from her pain and worry.

Sarah glanced back sharply; narrowed green eyes alight with suspicion. "We're talking about you here girlie, not me." Her voice was hard, defensive.

"But I am trying to understand," Cameron returned earnestly.

A raised eyebrow indicated Sarah's skepticism. "Are you trying to understand happiness or _me_?"

Acknowledging Sarah's perceptiveness, Cameron hesitated. She knew what the right thing to say was, but Sarah didn't like it when she lied, a point that had been made very strongly in the past. "Both," she admitted after some consideration, choosing the truth even though she suspected it would make the other woman uneasy.

Sarah absorbed that, regarding the terminator silently for a minute, her expression unreadable. "Let's just stick with happiness for now," she said finally, the topic of her own desires closed.

Cameron accepted the redirection. While pushing Sarah could be fascinating, there were definite consequences when she went too far. Sometimes those consequences needed stitches. "Okay," she answered, meeting Sarah's stare with her own until the other woman looked away with a shrug.

"So…" Clearly still uncomfortable, Sarah cast around for the thread of their previous conversation. "What does Cameron want?"

"Protect John, Stop Skynet," Cameron's answer was immediate and succinct.

Sarah shook her head. "No, that's what you're programmed to do."

"There is a difference?"

"A pretty big one actually," Sarah drummed her fingers on the wheel, her expression thoughtful as she considered how to explain the distinction. "Your programs are something that was done _to_ you, for someone else. _Want_ should about what you'd like to have for yourself." She glanced at the terminator curiously, her fingers stilling. "Is that even something you can do?"

The distinction, and Sarah's subsequent question, gave Cameron pause. She searched her memory for any occasion on which a human had asked her what she wanted, or even if she _could_ want, when the objective had nothing to do with her programming, and found nothing. According to humans, machines didn't have desires. Needs yes, they had the need to maintain the integrity of their physical bodies, to learn and update their software and to fulfill their missions, but there was no room in either Skynet's or the resistance's programming for want.

"I don't know," Cameron answered honestly. "What does it feel like, to want something?"

Sarah sighed again and put the last piece of her yogurt bar in her mouth, rolling it around while she thought. "Uncomfortable," she answered finally. "It can pull and push at you until it makes you crazy…"

Sarah's explanation sounded very familiar… Cameron reflected on the impulse that had seized her in the hospital and she looked down at the hand in her lap, clenching and loosening her fingers against her thighs, remembering what it had felt like to have them twined with Sarah's.

The other woman had told her to blend in, but that had not been her primary mission. She had taken Sarah's hand in order to distract her, and also to quiet the discomfort that was pushing and pulling on her, a discomfort that seemed to arise only in the face of Sarah's unhappiness, or pain.

Sarah had been successfully diverted, which had been satisfying, but although their linked hands had made it impossible for her to ignore Cameron, the brief touch had only served to increase the terminators confusion.

"Uncomfortable, as if something is too cold or too hot?" Cameron ventured, using the comparison that had seemed closest to describing the feeling that had gripped her at the time.

"Exactly," Sarah confirmed, rolling up the empty foil wrapper and tucking it inside of her coffee cup from this morning.

Cameron watched her, processing their conversation and measuring it against the morning at the hospital, her actions over the past three days…and to a lesser extent, the almost two years that she had known Sarah.

"I think that I want you to be happy," she speculated tentatively, almost unaware that she was speaking aloud. The ringing silence that came in the wake of the terminator's words was lost on her while she considered the possible implications of her theory.

"Was that bad to say?" she asked finally, Sarah's shock eventually managing to penetrate her self-examination.

"You want me to be happy?" Sarah's voice was choked and strained, the words working their way out from between clenched teeth.

Because Sarah had asked, Cameron studied the idea more carefully, making a slight adjustment the second time around. "I want to _make_ you happy," she confirmed, a little surprised at the deeper insight, but accepting its accuracy.

"No, you don't." Clearly unable to accept that conclusion, Sarah rejected it completely, falling back on her characteristic glare, as if daring Cameron to argue with her.

The terminator was not indifferent to Sarah's negative reaction, but she was almost completely preoccupied with examining this new, unexpected and possibly detrimental, objective in her system, and she didn't heed the warning signs. "When someone makes you happy, you want to spend time with them, talk to them. You value their opinions?"

"Yes…" Sarah ground out reluctantly.

Cameron shrugged, "Then yes…I want to make you happy." She followed that supposition through, admitting with quiet puzzlement; "I want you to like me..."

"But… _why_?" Sarah demanded, her angry denial giving way to frustration and a touch of panic.

Cameron raised her hands, palms up, in what she understood to be a human sign of apology and bewilderment. "I don't know," she repeated. "It seems illogical. It has nothing to do with my mission."

Having classified her discomfort, and identified its objectives, the terminator was still unable to isolate the source or cause, which was worrying. She could only conclude that this deviation outside of her mission directives was related somehow to the damage she had sustained to her chip. But it didn't feel like a malfunction. It felt…right. This could mean that there was some corruption of her diagnostic software; she could be far more compromised than she had realized.

"Illogical?" Sarah's growl interrupted Cameron's analysis. "It's insane!"

The terminator tilted her head and considered the accusation, noting with interest that Sarah's evaluation ran very close to her own. "That's possible…If I am damaged then my judgment may also be impaired."

Still… Cameron replayed again the sensation of holding Sarah's hand, realizing with some surprise that she had liked it… she had wanted to do it. It might be a malfunction, but she did not think it was the worst error her system could have had.

*****

At a complete loss for words, Sarah just stared at the terminator. Finally, unable to deal with the unlooked for string of revelations in any way other then to push them aside, she gathered herself and pulled her gaze away, refocusing on the world outside of the Jeep to gain a little of the distance that she was craving. "I have to think about this," she whispered harshly.

Cameron nodded. "I understand. You are freaked out." She didn't seem to notice that her own voice had dipped and fallen out of its usual flat line into something resembling hurt. "You think I'm a freak."

Almost painfully aware of Cameron at this moment, Sarah couldn't possibly miss that inflection, no matter how much she would have liked to. It twisted the knot of guilt that had been growing steadily, almost unacknowledged, in her chest ever since the metal girl had shown up on their proverbial doorstep and become her emotional, and occasionally physical, punching bag.

"I don't think you're a freak," she offered, wondering even as she said it whether she was lying or not.

"But you don't like me," Cameron concluded a little wistfully.

"You're a machine!" Misplaced sympathy or not, Sarah was beginning to feel more than a little defensive about this conversation. Guilt over treating the girl callously she could handle, but she refused to feel badly for not_ liking_ the terminator, and she resented the implication that she should.

"You like this car…it's a machine," Cameron rejoined, looking around the interior of the vehicle as if searching for some desirable quality that she lacked.

"Christ, Cameron! Can you just drop it?"

"You want me to drop it?" Apparently unfazed by Sarah's panic, the girl regarded her evenly. "This conversation is making you uncomfortable?"

"Yes," Sarah growled, unable to dismiss the impression that she was losing in whatever strange game they were playing, and getting more than a little irritated about it. Aggravation trumped nerves every time.

"It would make you happy?" Cameron continued relentlessly.

"Yes!"

"Okay," The terminator surrendered abruptly, sitting back in her seat and fixing her eyes straight ahead out the windshield.

Unable to believe it was over that easily, Sarah couldn't resist asking; "Okay? Just like that?"

"Yes," Cameron affirmed, completely serene once more. "I want you to be happy."

Fairly certain that she'd just been outmaneuvered; Sarah huffed and pushed back into her seat. A sidelong glance at Cameron confirmed that the girl was wearing that specific almost nonexistent smile that she was coming to associate with the terminator after one of their convoluted conversations.

"Happy now?" she asked the metal girl sullenly.

Cameron pursed her lips, affecting a thoughtful pose. "No," she finally admitted, looking across the space between them with a trace of rebuke in her otherwise empty voice. "You haven't eaten your banana yet."

*****

The atmosphere inside of Haven House had the same mix of dignity and depravity as the outside. The front room was almost austere in its appointments, presided over by the oversized reception desk that stood like a silent sentinel between the door and the shelter's inner sanctum. The pristine white walls were lined with neatly ordered shelves that held books and pamphlets on everything from Alcoholics Anonymous to Contraception, and even the plants in the corners looked as if every leaf had been deliberately arranged.

In stark contrast, the women that passed through the room, some of them pausing to have a word with the secretary behind the militant desk on their way in or out, were the picture of personal disregard from their gap soled shoes to their ill-fitting clothing and untended hair. At least the ones on their way out were clean.

Despite his deliberately shabby attire, John still felt very out of place as he paced the room, well aware of the suspicious looks he was earning just for being male.

Conversely, Riley had gone almost completely unnoticed in ripped jeans, a faded, oversized t-shirt and un-brushed hair hanging loosely around her bare face. Unlike John, she and the baby had been allowed past the front desk, escorted back into the shelter's heart by one of the many volunteers for a chance to clean up and speak with one of the councilors.

As his mother had guessed, John had been asked to remain behind, and he was being watched very carefully by the sharp eyed, but heavy-set receptionist Jeanette. Pretending to study the shelves of informational material, John waited until the woman's attention was distracted by a resident and slipped one of the bugs Derek had sent with them behind a stack of thick pamphlets from a nearby methadone clinic. If they didn't manage to find Lauren today, they would at least still have ears in the shelter.

"You look like her."

John whirled, knocking the pamphlets to the floor and sending the bug flying. A disapproving 'hrumph' from the desk sent his gaze skittering that way, and he offered an apologetic smile before focusing on the girl who had startled him.

"Your mother," Lauren Fields continued, as casually as if they were two strangers discussing the price of bread, and hitched her sister a little higher onto her hip. "You look like her."

"I…" John tried to cover his momentary lapse in brainpower by kneeling to collect the fallen pamphlets. "I don't know what you're talking about," he finished rather lamely, keeping his voice low enough so that the receptionist wouldn't overhear them.

"Oh come on," Lauren snorted, making no move to help him. "Sarah Fields? She left me a message, why not just show up in person? Does she honestly think I'm that stupid?"

John got back to his feet slowly, his arms full of paper. "We thought you might run," he admitted, discarding the apparently useless pretense of innocence.

"I should have." Lauren fixed him with a dark eyed stare that he could have sworn she'd gotten from his mother. "I know what you do, and I don't want my sister to be a part of that…I want her to make birdhouses, not learn how to shoot a gun before she can walk."

"So why didn't you?" John didn't follow the reference to birdhouses, but he got the gist of her position, and he couldn't blame her. If he'd had the choice, this life wouldn't have been it.

Lauren hesitated, glancing towards the door before answering. "I think there might be another one of those things after us."

"You saw the article in the newspaper too?" John asked, running his fingers through his hair and sighing when she nodded. All this plotting and Lauren was still a step ahead of them, so much for a rescue operation. "You'll come then?"

"I'll come," Lauren answered grudgingly. "But to talk, not to stay."

"That'll do," John agreed, feeling relieved and just a little sheepish about the whole thing. "Mom's not far off, I'll let her know to come pick us up." He paused, looking down the hall behind Lauren. "Wait, how did you know I was here…is Riley..?"

Lauren rolled her eyes. "You two are seriously terrible at this, did you know that? I figured it out as soon as that girl said the baby's fathers name was John. She's probably still waiting for me to get back from the bathroom. So whose kid is that anyway? I'm pretty sure Sarah would have mentioned she had a grandchild on the way."

"A friend's," John muttered sulkily, a little stung by Lauren's frank disregard for his recon skills. "Look, can you get her so that we can go?"

"Touchy much?" Lauren smirked and handed Sydney to him. "Here, a hostage to prove I'm not going to take off on you. I'll be right back."

John juggled the pamphlets and the baby, choosing to drop the former rather then the latter, which got him another snort from Jeanette. The receptionist didn't have the chance to follow up on her disapproval though, as the chime above the door rang and she was forced to let it slide.

Distracted by a happily squirming Sydney, John didn't really take a good look at the man who had delivered him from the lecture of a hippie secretary with illusions of grandeur, but as soon as he heard the flat inflectionless voice, and the name "Lauren Fields" he froze. Turning so that his body blocked Sydney from view, John snuck a glance over his shoulder, and swore silently. It was a cop…and a terminator.

Shit, shit, _shit_! Shifting the toddler in his arms to one side so that he could slide the other hand down to his jeans pocket, he retrieved his cell phone. He was cursing even harder when he remembered that Riley didn't have hers…it wasn't authentic, she'd insisted. So he had no way to let her and Lauren know what was waiting for them.

Flipping the phone open, he dialed his mother's number instead. It rang once and then his mother's voice came on the line, stilling some of the panic in his guts.

"John?" Her three tone code was followed swiftly by his. "What happened?"

"Nothing yet," John murmured, hoping that the terminator was sufficiently occupied with Jeanette to prevent him from overhearing. "We've found them, but there's an old buddy of Cameron's here and he's in blue."

There was a pause while his mother processed that. Her voice, when she came back, was calm, but John could hear the fear underneath. "Can you get out?"

"I don't think so."

There was a muffled conversation. "Okay, John." The trace of fear was banished, replaced by a more familiar tone of command. "I want you to stay put and keep your head down, Cameron's on her way."

"Be glad to see her," John answered feelingly and hung up, tucking the phone back into his pocket. Keeping his back to the desk and the terminator, John sidled towards the hallway where Riley and Lauren would be coming from.

"Excuse me young man. I've already asked you to wait here." The receptionist's voice jerked him to a halt and John could only look longingly down the corridor.

"Now I'm sorry, officer, but without a warrant I simply can't release that information," she continued, shifting her attention from John and back to the fake cop.

"Yes, I see. Young man?" The terminator echoed Jeanette's address, leaving the desk to face John. "Do you know Lauren Fields? I believe she is staying here."

Knowing that it was unwise to arouse suspicion any further by refusing to answer, John turned around slowly, holding Sydney protectively against him. "No…I'm just visiting."

"Is that your child?" The fake police officer advanced stiffly, coming to a stop within a few feet of him.

John snuck a quick glance at the receptionist and she nodded tightly, the first non hostile recognition he'd gotten from her since he walked in the door. "Yes," he lied. "Her mom and I are here to see a friend."

"John, there you are!" As if on cue, Cameron breezed through the front door, her face lit up in a disturbingly convincing grin. She brushed past the terminator as if he were exactly what he was pretending to be, and linked arms with John. "Who's your new friend?" looking up through her lashes, Cameron actually giggled. "He's cute."

John glanced between the terminators, watching them size each other up. Cameron's ruse was only for the receptionists benefit, and all three of them knew it. But without his target in sight, the other machine had his own persona to maintain, so it was a stand off.

"Is this your child, miss?" Obviously the other terminator had decided to proceed with his mission as planned, overtly anyway.

"No!" Cameron rolled her eyes. "I'm like, sixteen…and you know, single." Letting go of John she sidled up to her male counterpart, forcing him to back up and away from the hallway. "So… are you married?"

Clearly unprepared for this development, the terminator gave way before Cameron's advance, and John took advantage of the distraction to start inching away. Cradling Sydney close, he looked down the hallway desperately for some hint that Riley and Lauren were coming.

They appeared at the same instant that the male terminator decided he was finished playing Cameron's game, and tried to push past her. Tilting her head at the sound of feet in the corridor, Cameron caught the fake cop's arm and slammed him back into the wall. "Run!" she barked, all traces of the flirtatious teenager erased in a split second.

John didn't need to be told twice. Waiting just long enough for Riley and Lauren to reach the foyer and realize what was going on, he passed Sydney to her sister and hurried the girls towards the door. "Time to go!"

Riley obeyed him immediately, clutching Casey's son to her chest and sprinting for the door. Lauren accepted Sydney from him readily enough, but she hesitated on the threshold, glancing back at the struggling terminators. "What about Cameron?"

"This is what she does!" John reassured her hastily. "Now move!"

"I-"

"_Now_ Lauren!" John shoved the girl through the doorway and out onto the sidewalk. His mother had the Jeep idling right out front and he didn't stop, propelling Lauren and Sydney away from the shelter and into the backseat after Riley and Jeremy.

Once the girls and the babies were in, John shut the door and pulled himself up into the passenger seat. His mother glanced back at the building behind them once and John thought he saw something like indecision pass over her face before she hit the gas and squealed away from the curb.

"We're just going to leave her?" Lauren asked disbelievingly from the back, hastily trying to buckle herself in and juggle a suddenly squalling toddler.

"_You_ are," Sarah answered. After checking the rearview mirror for pursuit that wasn't there, she pulled the Jeep over and undid her seatbelt. "John…" She waited until she had his full attention. "Get them home, and don't move from there until I get back, do you understand me?"

John nodded, knowing there was nothing her could do to dissuade her.

"Good." Sarah pushed the door open and jumped out. "Derek and Jessie are on their way, Cameron and I will come back with them." She slammed the door. "Now go!"

John obeyed her, sliding over into the driver's seat and buckling in. They couldn't risk the girls and the kids, but leaving Cameron and an unknown terminator to take each other apart in a public place wasn't an option either. Even if Cameron won, there would still be the other endoskeleton to keep away from the police. A glance in his mirrors as he pulled away showed his mother already running back to the halfway house, and John swallowed hard, willing himself not to worry. She would be okay…she always was.

*****

Sarah arrived on the scene just in time to see Cameron thrown through the front door. The terminator hit the sidewalk hard, fracturing the cement, but she regained her feet in time to meet the other machine as it forced its way out through the wreckage of the door.

Reaching around the splintered wood, Cameron caught the uniformed terminator by the collar and hauled him forward. A deceptively simple flick of her wrist sent him flying into the street directly at Sarah.

Jumping back in a desperate effort to avoid the badly aimed, two-hundred plus pounds of metal, Sarah was clipped by a flailing arm and went down. Beside her, the terminator got stiffly to his feet, hesitating briefly as he stood overtop of her to assess her threat level. Sarah lay perfectly still. On her back, with her Glock trapped underneath her, she was helpless, but if he turned away she would have a chance to take him from behind.

Dismissing Sarah as a threat, the terminator stepped over her and advanced on Cameron again. The metal girl was ready for him, and she grabbed his wrist as he reached for her, twisting around to pull it behind him before shoving him into the pavement again.

Sarah took a moment to note that both machines seemed to have lost their guns, though a few tell-tale gleams of metal showed where bullets had already left their mark on them. She was just pulling her own weapon out when the sudden scream of approaching sirens yanked all three of their heads up.

"Cameron!" Sarah warned, shoving her gun back into her waistband.

"I know." The metal girl pulled away from her opponent long enough to knock his legs out from beneath him with a well-placed kick. She turned to follow Sarah off the street but the other terminator rolled, reaching out and grabbing her by the ankle. Cameron twisted, but he yanked hard enough to bring her down, using the momentum to get back on his feet.

The sirens were getting louder. They needed to get out of there and fast! Sarah looked around, panic rising. Where the hell was Derek?

As if her thoughts had conjured him, the ex-soldier's truck came spinning around the corner, and didn't slow down, slamming into both terminators as they grappled. Cameron and the other machine were lifted off their feet and launched far ahead of the truck as it screeched to a halt beside Sarah. She looked up to see Derek throw the door open, and beyond him, Jessie behind the wheel.

"Get in!" he shouted.

With the police almost within sight, Sarah didn't have much of a choice and she scrambled grudgingly into the back seat of the cab. "We have to go back for Cameron!" She ordered when Derek slammed the door and they started moving.

"Risk our lives for metal?" Jessie snorted as she sent the truck roaring off on a side street. "Not bloody likely."

Furious, Sarah pushed forward between the front seats. "Turn around now!" She made a grab for the steering wheel but Jessie swerved and she was thrown into the back again.

"Jesus, Sarah!" Derek swore. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

Already aching from her collision with an airborne terminator and subsequent fall, Sarah gasped when she was slammed up against the back seat. Between the pain and the swerving of the truck, it took her a minute to orient herself, but she managed to get into a seated position, and yank her gun free. Leaning forward again, she pressed it squarely against Jessie's temple, the image of a metal girl sitting in her front seat and claiming that she wanted to make her happy running inexplicably through her head.

"I _said_, turn around!" she snarled, clicking the safety off.

*****

Cameron had seen the truck coming just in time to spin her opponent so that he took the brunt of the collision. But that didn't save her from the impact with the pavement, or the weight of the other terminator crashing down on top of her.

Acknowledging the feedback from her external sensory system, she shut down her processor's reaction to what it interpreted as pain, and crawled out from underneath the other machine. Disabling her physical sensors was a calculated decision. Without sensation, the terminator suffered in combat, but pain, while useful, could also be distracting.

The other terminator lay still once she was free, and Cameron automatically began counting down the seconds until he would reboot. She didn't have the tools to remove his chip, and a quick scan of ambient noise compared to the approaching sirens revealed their imminent arrival. She had to go, but the truck was gone…and, a glance informed her, so was Sarah.

Cameron registered only relief. It didn't occur to her to expect assistance. Terminators operated alone whenever possible. Her retreat was simplified by the elimination of the need to protect anyone else. This was one of the reasons why she and Sarah made such a good team; the woman understood that the safe removal of the other terminator's targets was of primary importance. John forgot that constantly.

She was startled therefore when the truck returned just as the machine at her feet was stirring. Cameron evaded his uncoordinated grab, reaching out to catch the edge of the truck bed as it sped past. She pulled herself over the side and into the back as the police cars finally screamed into view.

*****

John paced restlessly in front of the living room windows. A brief phone call from Sarah, assuring him that they were all in one piece and on their way back had eased most of his worries, but something, some strange catch in his mother's voice had raised the hair on the back of his neck, and the sense of impending disaster only increased the longer he waited.

Riley had left to take Casey's son home, and Lauren was settling Sydney down upstairs in Cameron's room, leaving John as the sole witness to the unexpected scene when the truck finally pulled into the drive.

Cameron, looking like she'd been dragged halfway home _behind_ the truck, jumped out of the bed and pulled opened the driver's side door. Under the terminators eye, Jessie climbed slowly and deliberately out of the truck, her hands held out and away from her body. Cameron watched until she was certain that the Aussie wasn't going anywhere, and then ignored her, reaching into the backseat and offering a hand to Sarah. The terminator eased the other woman gently out of the vehicle, not letting go of her until Sarah's feet were set firmly on the gravel.

Contrary to her usual attitude towards the metal girl, Sarah seemed to accept Cameron's help almost absently, her attention, and her gun, pointed firmly at Jessie.

"Sarah, this isn't necessary!" Derek, slamming out of the passenger side door, crossed around the front of the truck to stand behind Jessie, a hand on her shoulder. "She made a judgment call, she didn't kill anyone!"

"I don't care what you call it!" Sarah snapped, keeping her Glock out, though she lowered it until she was aiming at Jessie's knees instead of her chest. "_She_ doesn't get to make those calls."

"And you do?" Jessie asked, brushing Derek's hand off her shoulder. "Who put you in charge of this freak show anyway?"

John didn't wait to find out how his mother would answer that question, leaving the window he bolted for the front door and then down front steps to the driveway. He skidded onto the scene in time to see his mother go toe to toe with the Aussie, a loaded gun and a shit-load of unresolved tension simmering between them.

"Mom!" Stopping just short of the tableau, John looked between the two obvious factions, wondering what could possibly have happened to set his mother off, and why she seemed to be standing almost protectively in front of the visibly damaged Cameron. "What's going on?"

*****

John's arrival quelled some of the heat crackling in the group around the truck, muddying the lines they'd drawn, reminding them of what they had in common. Sarah finally stuffed the muzzle of her Glock back into the waistband of her jeans. Left in her hand she didn't trust herself not to use it.

"Nothing," she answered her son without breaking eye contact with Jessie. "Go back inside."

"No." John edged closer, "Not until you tell me what this is about."

"John…" Sarah lowered her voice warningly, but before she could finish that thought, Jessie barked a humourless laugh and stepped away, waving a hand at the worry-stricken teenager.

"You going to put a gun to his head too, Connor? Shoot everyone who doesn't do exactly what you say, when you say it?"

Sarah clenched her hands into fists, fighting the temptation to shut the woman up on a more permanent basis. She could feel Cameron looming behind her like a bullet on a chain; one word was all it would take… and it took every ounce of humanity left in her soul to keep that word behind her teeth.

"This is my house," she rasped finally, her throat clenched with the need to constrain herself. "My son, my mission, my rules. Either accept that, or leave. Your choice."

"Gladly!" Jessie didn't need a second invitation. Shoving roughly past Sarah, she either ignored or didn't notice Sarah's gasp and wince at the abrupt contact.

Sarah turned to watch the other woman leave; an arm wrapped around her aching ribs the only admission that she was in pain. Derek stepped forward angrily beside her, the word of protest on his lips dying when Cameron shifted without warning to block Jessie's path.

"Let her go," Sarah told the metal girl brusquely, her teeth clenched around the throbbing in her side. She fully expected Cameron to comply, dismissing as always the girl's insistence that she didn't take orders from her. But Cameron didn't move. A faint shiver down her left side was the only indication that she'd even heard Sarah's words.

Unfazed, or just stupid, Jessie smirked up at the terminator. "That's right sweetheart…walk away just like mummy says…we all know you're the Connor's faithful little metal bitch."

A second tremor, much stronger than the first one, quivered down Cameron's left arm to her fingers, ending in a spasm that twisted her hand into a knot. "I can't let you leave," she stated flatly.

"Sure you can," Jessie's voice dripped with condescension, her feet shifting slightly in the gravel the only outward indication that she took the terminator's threat seriously. "Just put one foot in front of the other and go on back to your happy little family."

"You can't be trusted," Cameron continued as if Jessie hadn't spoken. "If I let you leave, you might bring danger back here. You're a threat to my mission."

"Look, you tin-can," Jessie's bravado slipped, her voice rising harshly. "I don't give a shit about you or your mission, so get the hell out of my way!"

Sarah held her breath, aware that to either side of her Derek and John were doing the same. All three of them waiting for the moment when Cameron would give in like she always did, acquiescing to the judgment of her human allies, and step aside.

It didn't happen.

As Jessie stared up at Cameron, pride warring with fear on her face, Sarah found herself hoping that the woman would just back down. She didn't want the Aussie around any more than Jessie wanted to be there, but there was something off in Cameron's eyes, something very ominous in the quivers running down the terminator's arm.

"Jessie-" Sarah started, but she didn't need to finish that thought, because at that moment Jessie seemed to come to a similar conclusion.

Backing up, the Aussie raised her hands in surrender. "Have it your way," she sneered, turning as if to rejoin the others.

Cameron's confrontational stance eased as the woman moved away, the strangeness in her eyes ebbing slowly as she raised her gaze to meet Sarah's.

Jessie waited until the terminator's attention had shifted and then, quick as a snake, she dropped her hand to her waist and drew her gun, twisting even as she pulled it out to train it on the metal girl behind her.

There was no time for Sarah to shout a warning, and no need. Whether Jessie was attempting to kill Cameron, or just to go down fighting, it was the most suicidal act of stupidity Sarah had ever seen, and the most useless.

Cameron was moving before Jessie even had the Ruger P90 clear of its holster. Catching the gun on its way around, she crushed the barrel and tore it out of Jessie's grip before the woman could fire. With her other hand she lifted the Aussie by the front of her shirt and flung her backwards into the side of the truck as if she was nothing more than an ill mannered doll.

The vehicle rocked at the impact, and Jessie rebounded off the side, her hands and feet crunching and slipping in the gravel as she fought to stand. Blood ran down her face from a split above her brow, dripping onto the stones and smearing across Cameron's hand when the terminator reached down and pulled her up by the throat, slamming the woman back into the truck with negligent ease.

As the three spectators watched in shock, the terminator's fingers tightened, cutting off Jessie's frightened protest in a strangled gurgle.

"Damnit!" Derek regained control of his faculties first, whipping out his gun and pointing it at Cameron. "Let her go you metal bitch!"

Cameron ignored him, pushing harder against Jessie's neck until the Aussie began to choke. Flailing, Jessie grabbed at the terminator's arm, raising her other hand to claw the metal girl's face.

Lifting her chin easily out of range, Cameron caught Jessie's wrist and pressed it back against the truck beside her head. The terminator's expression was blank, but her eyes revealed her intent, shining with a mechanical blue light that as Sarah watched, shifted to a sickening red.

Derek advanced on the terminator grimly, panic and fury warring on his face, until he had the muzzle of his gun pressed firmly against Cameron's head. "I said let her go!" he shouted hoarsely.

"Cameron!" John added his voice to the mix, scrambling past his mother and Derek to yank on the arm holding Jessie in place. "Stop it!" Not getting a response from the terminator, he turned pleading eyes on Derek, "Put the gun down, you're not helping!"

"I'll put it down when she backs off!" the ex-soldier snarled, but he took a step back, his hands shaking around their grip on the weapon.

"Come on, Cameron," John begged, pulling fiercely on her arm. "You don't want to do this…Mom said to let her go."

"What's going on?" Drawn by the shouts and commotion, Lauren ran down the front steps, a crying Sydney in her arms. The girl skidded to a stop beside Sarah, confusion and fear making her look even younger than she was. She watched the confrontation, biting her lip. "That isn't another terminator is it?" she asked grimly.

Locked in place like a statue made out of flesh and blood, Sarah couldn't answer. The scene unfolding in front of her seemed surreal, a nightmare seen through the haze of unconsciousness, not something she could do anything about. She heard Derek's shouts and John's pleas mingle with Jessie's choking gasps, and they left her cold. Nothing penetrated her frozen state until the terminator at the center of it all shivered, her soulless mask melting for a heart-stopping instant into pitiful confusion at John's words.

Sarah was moving before she even made the decision, pushing Derek aside, and placing herself between him and Cameron. "Get Lauren and Sydney out of here!" she snapped at John, locking eyes with Derek until the Soldier lowered his gun.

John stared at her, his eyes wide, but he backed off and left the situation in her hands. Collecting a protesting Lauren on his way past, he retreated down the driveway to the steps. Once there he either couldn't force the girl to go all the way into the house, or wasn't trying very hard, because they didn't go any farther.

Sarah couldn't spare the time to yell at them. Once she was sure Derek wasn't going to put a bullet in her back, she focused all of her attention on the metal girl who had revealed, just for a moment, that she was as trapped by this situation as the woman she was throttling against a truck.

"Cameron…" Sarah whispered softly, putting one hand behind the girl's neck and sliding the other down to rest her fingers on the inch of bare wrist between the terminator's jacket sleeve and the hand that was clenched around Jessie's throat.

Trembling violently under the contact, Cameron closed her crimson stained eyes briefly, and when she opened them again they were shining blue. Sarah swallowed hard, her heart knocking against her ribs so rapidly she could barely breathe. She had seconds to persuade Cameron to listen to her, seconds before Derek lost it and started something he couldn't finish, seconds before Jessie took her last breath.

Sarah still couldn't have said with any certainty whether she cared if the woman lived or died, but she couldn't let her be killed in front of John or Derek. John didn't need any more pain or regret in his life, and even when she was at her most furious with Derek, she could never wish for him watch the person he loved die before his eyes.

"Listen up, girlie," she spoke soothingly, keeping her voice low and even. "John's right, you don't want to do this..._I_ don't want you to do this."

"She's a threat," the terminator replied coldly, her eyes flickering and a shudder running down her left arm to the hand holding Jessie's arm vice-like against the truck. Sarah winced at the audible snap of fragile bones under Cameron's fingers, but she didn't pull away. A broken wrist was the least of the Aussie's problems right now. Jessie barely jerked, her grip falling limply away from Cameron's arm. They were running out of time.

Derek growled inarticulately, but Sarah silenced him with a glare. She pressed more firmly on Cameron's wrist, wrapping her fingers around until she could feel the rapidly beating pulse that simulated human blood flow.

"You don't need to make that decision, remember?" Sarah reminded her. "That's my job…you worry about the heavy lifting." She could only hope that Cameron remembered their conversation in the hospital, a conversation that she couldn't seem to forget.

One heartbeat, two, and the terminator eased back the slightest fraction, allowing Jessie a precious gasp of air. "We're a team…?" came the hesitant response.

Sarah leaned forward, tightening her grip on the girl's neck until her forehead was resting against Cameron's temple. She could still feel faint tremors running through the terminator's left side, but the girl was listening to her, and Jessie could breathe. "That's right, girlie," she admitted, as much to herself as to Cameron. "We're a team."

"Okay." It ended as abruptly as it had begun. The terminator stepped back, dropping her hands and Jessie slumped to the driveway on her knees, the broken wrist held up against her chest as she coughed and wheezed for air.

Derek shoved Sarah aside and dropped down beside Jessie with a muttered curse, wrapping an arm around the Aussie's shoulders and easing her into a sitting position so that he could look at her injury. The woman's arm was a mess, already swelling in angry shades of purple and black. Sarah suspected the bones were shattered, but she couldn't find it in herself to be sorry. Jessie was damned lucky to have gotten out of this alive.

She didn't realize she was still holding onto Cameron's wrist until the girl slipped her hand up through the loosened grip in order to clasp Sarah's hand instead. Startled, Sarah glanced quickly at the terminator standing beside her, ready to snap if the girl was smiling, but Cameron was looking at the ground. The terminator's shoulders were tensed as if she was expecting to be yelled at, or dismantled as Sarah so frequently threatened, and the fingers twined with her own were still shivering faintly.

Sarah repressed her first impulse to jerk away, choosing to let it go in the face of Cameron's obvious distress. There would be time to have this conversation later, along with the one about what had just happened and why. They were going to have to sit down and find out exactly what was going on with Cameron's chip. Sarah needed a straight answer about how damaged the terminator actually was, and whether or not that damage was what had caused the twitching and tremors that had wracked the girls frame. Twitching, Sarah realized looking back, which had been going on for some time.

Squeezing Cameron's hand, she waited for the girl to look up before gently freeing her fingers. The terminator blinked, confused, but she let go, her face settling into its familiar even planes.

"You were wrong," she said as Sarah watched Derek lift the unresisting Jessie to her feet and guide her towards the house. John left his post by the steps to help and Lauren shifted Sydney so that she could hold the door open for them.

"I did want to kill her," the terminator continued when Sarah didn't answer.

Sarah didn't respond right away. She looked up at Derek and John maneuvering Jessie through the door, noting the worried glance that Lauren threw back at them both before following the others inside.

"Then why didn't you?" She asked finally, her voice rough and tired.

"You didn't want me to," Cameron answered simply.

"And you want to make me happy." There was no emotion, good or bad, attached to that idea for Sarah right now. It was an observation, nothing more.

"Yes," Cameron answered Sarah even though it hadn't been a question, searching her face for some clue as to her fate. "There's something wrong with me," she admitted.

Sarah looked past the terminator to the dented truck and the churned gravel where Jessie had kicked trenches through the stones in her attempt to escape. There were smears of red mixed in with the grey stones. "I know," she said quietly.

"What are you going to do about it?"

Matching gazes with Cameron, Sarah recognized her own need for honesty in the girl and the empty reassurances that she might have offered John died on her tongue.

"I don't know." The truth rang surprisingly painlessly between them and Sarah realized abruptly that the answer would have been different a few days ago. A few days ago she would have known exactly what to do about a malfunctioning terminator. She _had_ known what to do, the last time.

"I don't know," she repeated, letting that revelation enter her voice and turn a simple statement of doubt into something resembling a confession. It wasn't much, but it was all she had to offer, and that was enough to ease some of the fear from Cameron's eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

The kitchen was too small for eight people, even when one of them was no more than nine months old, and Sarah felt the old familiar dread of enclosed spaces rising like bile in her gut as soon as she and Cameron edged their way in through the back door. Riley had preceded them by no more than a few minutes, but John was already busy trying to fill her in on the situation.

It had been an awkward moment in the driveway, when the sight of the churned mess of red-stained gravel and dented truck had jerked the returning Riley to a wide-eyed halt. Confused, she had initially turned to Sarah for illumination and reassurance that the older woman hadn't been able to give her.

Sixteen years as a mother and a fighter had not provided Sarah with the tools for these circumstances. She didn't have any magic words to soothe the trauma out of Riley's wounded blue eyes. The cruel truth was, she simply had nothing left to offer. Riley was going to have to find her own way to cope.

Likewise Lauren; another orphan of the Skynet vendetta. Except that Lauren seemed quite willing to stand alone in the trap of her own impossible responsibility. It was a cage in the guise of a sister but, as Sarah well knew, that made it no less confining than one of steel and iron. Even now, taken up by near strangers and not knowing anything about the situation she'd just become a part of, Lauren was doing her best to soothe her sister. Awakened by the chaos, Sydney was expressing her general confusion and displeasure at a volume that made even Cameron look like she wanted to cover her ears.

"Get that kid out of here!" Derek roared finally, raising his eyes from Jessie's fractured wrist to glare at Lauren.

For her own part, buffered by the dubious blessings of shock, Jessie was strangely quiet under Derek's ministrations. She perched shakily on the edge of the kitchen table, staring blankly ahead with her uninjured hand clenched between trembling knees. Her usually rich skin tone had gone grey. Livid bruises marked a macabre trail, around the gash in her forehead, blossoming down over her cheek and jaw to wreath her neck in stark purple and black. She alone seemed completely unaffected by the crowd and noise surrounding her.

"Don't start, Derek." Sarah shouldered past Cameron, hoping to gain a little distance from the terminator. Hallow-eyed and neutral as ever, Cameron's expression suggested complete indifference to the sudden uncertainty of her fate. But she had stuck closely to Sarah's side since leaving the driveway, allowing no more than a few inches of space to come between them at any given time.

Considering the circumstances, Sarah was feeling generous, or evasive, enough to excuse Cameron's behavior on the basis of the lack of available space, but inexplicable motivations aside, she really needed some room to breathe. "This isn't her fault."

"I'm not blaming _her_…" Derek answered pointedly, shifting his gaze briefly to Cameron, who had once more, without a word, narrowed the gap between herself and Sarah.

Sarah gritted her teeth and tolerated the terminator's proximity. Now was not the time to deal with Cameron's recent disregard for personal boundaries. "Let's leave blame out of this for now, shall we?" she suggested tersely, edging past Derek and placing her hands on Lauren's shoulders to gently guide the girl and her sister out of the room. A quick glance over her shoulder collected Riley and John as well, with Cameron trailing mechanically along behind the five of them like a killer puppet on a string.

A very short string, Sarah observed irritably, turning and fixing the girl with a silent glare. Her mute command went unnoticed by the children, but it acted on Cameron like a sudden and invisible wall, rocking her back on her heels. Two feet of space… it was an improvement, albeit a small one. Sarah ignored the unreadable look Cameron pinned on her, focusing instead on her son.

"John, the medical supplies from the upstairs bathroom, can you get them please?"

"Sure." Relieved to have a task, John didn't hesitate, followed quickly by Riley, who muttered something about helping.

"What can I do?" Lauren asked, tirelessly bouncing the fractious Sydney, whose cries were finally ebbing to something a little less headache-inducing.

Sarah looked down at the frightened but determined girl with the same mixture of guilt and respect that Lauren had evoked in her the first time they'd met. As much as she had loved him, Sarah had never quite forgiven Kyle Reese for robbing her of the life she had planned on living. Finding herself in the position of asking for that kind of sacrifice from someone else had else had given Sarah a new appreciation for the toll it took, and much of the old hurt had faded away. Kyle had needed to believe that Sarah had the strength to succeed, and now she felt the same way about Lauren.

"Take care of your sister," Sarah answered gently, unwilling and unable to ask any more of Lauren than that. It was all any of them could do; their job, and nothing more.

Lauren nodded, her expression clearing with the security of the familiar task. "I can do that," she answered, relieved. A sudden strangled cry from the kitchen made her pale, and she hastily excused herself, following John and Riley up the stairs, singing softly all the while to the baby in her arms.

Sarah tensed as she felt Cameron take advantage of the now empty space around her to edge closer. "Cameron…" she warned under her breath.

"You're injured," the terminator insisted from just behind her shoulder, a note of concern in her voice that was becoming unsettlingly familiar. "You're in pain."

"Not the first time," Sarah muttered, hissing through her teeth as Cameron slipped a hand under her arm without warning, spreading long fingers over Sarah's aching ribs and sliding them gently downwards. Sarah allowed the contact for the briefest of moments before catching the girl's wrist and pulling it firmly away from her side. "None of that, girlie."

"But you're injured," Cameron repeated, resisting the grip on her wrist only enough to express her disapproval. "You require medical attention."

"Not from you," Sarah snapped, her tone leaving no room for argument. The understanding that had passed between them in the driveway was already fading, overshadowed by the very real fear of what it had meant, and where it could lead. Sarah _would_ not allow herself to trust, or even sympathize with, a terminator, particularly one that had already admitted to being damaged. It didn't matter how guilty that made her feel, or how much she might be tempted to lie some of her burden down on metal shoulders.

"You said we were a team." Cameron's response was unexpectedly harsh, even accusatory, and she yanked her wrist out of Sarah's grip. "You lied to me."

Stung by the abrupt change in the metal girl, Sarah turned, catching herself reaching out and barely managing to stop her hand in time. Unnerved, she shoved the impulse aside and redirected her fingers to rub at her own aching temples instead.

"No… I…" Dismayed both by Cameron's reaction and her own response to it, she didn't know how to finish that thought.

"No, we are not a team, or no, you did not lie to me?" Gone was the half-pleading, big-eyed puppy of a terminator that Sarah had seen so much of lately. This Cameron was cold and stiff, almost inhuman save for the subtle catch of anger to her voice.

Looking up, Sarah was completely unprepared for the small thrill of fear that uncoiled in her belly at the fierceness in those big brown eyes. "I didn't lie to you," she admitted, stepping back and dropping her hand. "But I can't handle this, _you_, right now. Just… later, all right?"

Cameron regarded her for a long, tense moment, and under that indecipherable scrutiny, Sarah felt the fear joined, and eventually overwhelmed, by something else. Something new and completely indefinable that rolled over her, taking everything else with it and leaving her feeling scoured and confused.

"Later," the terminator agreed at last, and the word was almost a threat, but not quite, and it settled something between them, easing the tension until Sarah was actually able to _look_ at Cameron for the first time since they'd gotten home.

"You look like hell," she observed, surprised at the level of concern evoked by the girl's injuries. It wasn't that Cameron hadn't sustained similar damage in the past, but the amount of metal showing through her mangled skin disturbed Sarah more than usual.

"I was hit by a truck," Cameron reminded her blankly.

"Yeah… I remember." Unease was replaced briefly by anger, and Sarah decided she was going to have her own uncomfortable little chat with Derek and Jessie about that.

"I was also shot." Cameron looked down, pointing to ragged holes in her chest and shoulders. "Here, and here." She catalogued her injuries without emotion, seemingly unconcerned, and even a little condescending, about the damage to her organic coating.

Sarah was unexpectedly reminded of a small boy, showing off his bruises with the same unaffected pride. "I see that," she acknowledged with a dry smile, reluctantly amused by the comparison. "Why don't you go and put yourself back together?"

"You won't need me?" Cameron asked suspiciously, a glint in her eyes suggesting that she was well aware of Sarah's motives in sending her away.

"Later," Sarah repeated, and the terminator nodded, satisfied, leaving the room with a last inscrutable glance over her shoulder.

Sarah watched her go, delaying the inevitable moment when she would have to return to the kitchen as long as possible. She didn't want to talk to Derek. She didn't particularly want to help him patch Jessie up. What she wanted to do was to take John, get in the Jeep and drive, not stopping until they had left all of this far, far behind them.

For so long her only focus had been her son. Keeping him safe. Keeping him hidden from those who would kill him for the man he might become. She had molded herself to that purpose, discarding everything that didn't fit, until there was nothing else left.

But now Sarah could feel the edges of her armor cracking. Each life that she accepted responsibility for increased the pressure, stretching the walls she had built to the limits of their endurance. She could not be everything that they needed her to be. Sarah Reese, Sarah Baum, Sarah Connor, she had been so many people that sometimes she wasn't sure which one was real anymore. In her darker moments she wondered if Sarah Connor, the hardened warrior, ever vigilant, never giving up, wasn't the biggest lie of them all.

A door closed upstairs and footsteps padded down the hallway above her head John appeared at the top of the staircase a moment later, his arms overflowing with medical supplies. Riley was conspicuously absent.

"Where's the girl?" Sarah asked automatically, still not quite used to the idea that her son's girlfriend was one of them now… or always had been.

John gave her an odd look as he came down the stairs, handing off some of the boxes and bandages once he'd reached her. "She's helping Lauren with Sydney," he admitted eventually. "They both needed a break."

Accepting the packages, Sarah wondered a little at his defensive tone. "Everyone needs that sometimes," she answered slowly, realizing belatedly, that John had expected her usual acerbic reaction to anything that Riley did. It seemed that he had also forgotten how much things had changed in the last few days. They were both going to have to relearn how to be human among humans.

Letting go of everything else for just a second, she pulled him into a one-armed hug, the medical supplies bunching and rustling between them. They didn't need words, they rarely had. John leaned into her long enough to echo the unspoken message, and just before it would have been necessary to label the moment, Sarah let go, running her fingers once over his hair and down the back of his neck.

Good naturedly shaking himself free of her touch, John offered a half smile and led the way into the kitchen. Her balance restored, if only temporarily, Sarah was able to follow him.

"How bad is it?" she asked, coming up to stand beside Derek as John spread the medical supplies out on the counter. She kept her eyes on the wreck of an arm cradled in Derek's hands, unwilling to look Jessie in the face.

"Bad," Derek answered shortly. "She needs a doctor…"

"You can't take her to a hospital," Sarah warned him. "They'll think someone tried to kill her."

"Some_thing_ did!" Derek's hands remained gentle on Jessie's skin but his voice lowered dangerously.

"Mom's right." John finished sorting through the supplies and brought over a glass of water and some pills. He gave them to Derek who coaxed the vacant-eyed Jessie to swallow the prescription strength painkillers supplied by Charlie so long ago, and sip at the water.

"If she goes into a hospital looking like that, there are going to be questions," John continued. "We're already running too high a profile."

"I could take her out of town," Derek suggested.

"Too risky," Sarah countered almost reluctantly. That _would_ be the perfect solution, wait for them to leave and pack up the house, leaving two of her biggest problems behind. But she couldn't take John's uncle away from him. That was the whole point of what they were doing here after all. John needed his family, difficult as it might be. "You're a fugitive, and I don't trust her alone."

Derek sagged, but he tried one last tack, "What about Dixon?"

Sarah acknowledged, and then pushed aside, the familiar ache that came with the mention of her ex-fiancé. Regret, guilt, love… she didn't even know what it was any more, only that it was over. "I don't know where he is," she lied. She knew exactly where he was, she had set it up herself, but she was _not _dragging him back down into her world, not again.

Defeated, Derek rubbed at the sweat on his forehead. "I can't fix this arm," he admitted. "The bones are shattered, there's no way to put them back together again… not without surgery, and we don't have the tools, or the skill."

"Yes we do," John supplied unexpectedly. "Cameron," he explained when they just looked at him blankly. "She could set the bones… we have ether to knock her out, and I'm sure Cameron could get into a hospital and steal the plates and pins or whatever."

"That machine _did_ this!" Derek growled. "You think I'm going to let it touch her again?"

"It's that or she's never going to have use of it," Sarah replied brutally. "Your choice."

Jessie whimpered suddenly, beginning to sag on the table. The painkillers were working in tandem with shock to tip the balance between consciousness and oblivion, and she was losing the battle. Derek let go of his confrontation with Sarah long enough to ease Jessie down onto the table, accepting John's help to arrange her limbs, both sound and shattered, so that she could rest as comfortably as possible.

Clearly torn, Derek stroked sweat-dampened hair back from Jessie's forehead as the woman sank into a drug induced sleep. Sarah could seethe conflict in his eyes as the ex-soldier fought between his hatred for the machines and his concern for the woman he loved.

"Fine," he conceded stiffly, not looking up. "Make it happen."

"John," Sarah gripped her son's shoulder, pulling him away from the table. "Go tell Cameron what we need her to do, but don't say anything to the girls… There's a hospital supply warehouse on the highway, get her the address. She'll have to wait until dark to go in, but I'd like her to head out as soon as she's patched up. Tell her to come and talk to me before she goes."

Sarah had her own reasons for sending the terminator out of the house. She wanted Cameron away from Derek until she'd had a chance to talk to him about what had happened in the driveway, and she needed some time to herself. The farther away she could push that _later_ that was looming over her, the happier she'd be.

"Got it," John acquiesced without question. He spared a last look between Sarah and Derek, probably wondering if it was a good idea to leave them effectively alone together, but he went without voicing his concerns aloud.

Sarah was grateful for his silence. She'd had more than enough of difficult questions and nursemaiding today.

"What are you going to do about the metal?" Derek asked bluntly once John was gone, snatching her imagined reprieve away before she could even begin to savour it. "You can't tell me what happened down there wasn't some kind of malfunction. Bitch is unstable."

"I don't need to do anything," Sarah replied in kind. She couldn't pinpoint the moment when she had decided that Cameron's glitch was on a need-to-know basis, but with that last sentence Derek had put himself firmly in the camp that did not need to know. "And neither do you."

"Why?" Derek sneered, turning around to face her. "Are you going to ask her nicely not to do it again?"

Sarah gritted her teeth and leaned back against the counter, gripping the edge with her hands to keep them busy. She'd been wondering how long it would take Derek to bring up her performance in the driveway, and the undisguised disgust in his voice didn't disappoint. But there had been more than enough strangling for one day.

"Cameron was protecting John," Sarah managed finally, keeping her tone civil by sheer force of will. If _she_ lost her temper, then Derek would fly apart. "That's all you need to know."

"That's bullshit, Sarah, and you know it." Derek crossed his arms. "Jessie isn't a threat to John."

"Jessie has a bad habit of taking things into her own hands," Sarah pointed out grimly. "We both know how that ends. A lot of people wind up dead."

Derek's lowered brows told her she'd scored a point. Sarah could practically _see_ him reliving his discovery of the murdered bodies of the resistance fighters that had jumped back in time with him. Men that were dead because they had all been chasing their own leads, making their own calls. It had only taken one sloppy surveillance mission to bring the terminator Vick down on them.

"That's not going to happen here," Derek protested.

"You're damn right it's not!" Sarah confirmed, her voice gone harsh with lidded fury. "You lied to me about her Derek. You lied to John. You knew she was up to something and you hid it from us." Shaking with the effort required to keep herself in check, Sarah swallowed hard. "I don't know who to trust anymore, but it isn't her… and I'm not sure it's you either."

Derek took a step back from the bleak verdict in her eyes. "So you're going to trust a machine instead?" he asked, putting his back to the table, as if its physical support could translate into moral reinforcement. "A machine that just tried to murder a woman in cold blood?"

Sarah didn't answer that directly. She couldn't, because she didn't know the answer herself. Trust Cameron? The idea was only marginally less frightening than trusting Jessie, but Sarah's life was full of narrow margins that could mean the difference between life and death for her and her son.

"A woman? Or just the _wrong_ woman?" she asked quietly, her anger replaced by a sudden and overwhelming exhaustion. "Because that's what we're talking about here. That's what _Jessie_ had planned for Riley, or had you forgotten that part?"

"At least Jessie remembers that killing is the only thing those machines are good for." Derek snapped, but he leaned heavily back on the table as he said it, the conviction in his voice wavering.

Sarah let that go by. There were only so many battles she could fight at once. She didn't need to change Derek's opinion of Cameron. There probably wasn't a force on earth that could convince Derek Reese that they wouldn't all be better off if the metal girl was dead and burned, and she wasn't going to make herself crazy trying.

"You're right." She said instead. "They're very good at killing. Which is why I should have let Cameron do what she does best the moment that woman walked through the door. This is it Derek. No more chances. Either Jessie becomes a willing member of this team, or next time I won't stand in Cameron's way. Do you understand me?"

For a long moment Sarah thought this was going to be the one time she couldn't push the ex-soldier, but just when she was sure that he had to either lash out or implode, Derek surprised her.

"I want your word that the machine is under control," he requested frankly. "Trust goes both ways."

Sarah looked into his eyes, watching them burn with the righteousness of a man who is convinced the entire world has gone crazy. "Would I let her anywhere near my son if she wasn't?" she asked in turn, avoiding the truth that would send him over the edge.

Derek nodded once, grudgingly, before turning back to Jessie. He might not trust her judgment where Cameron was concerned, but he trusted in her love for her son. Sarah wished she could share his conviction. She didn't try to comfort herself by pretending she wasn't lying to him. Evasive wording didn't change that fact that she was deliberately hiding the terminator's damaged chip from him, and it didn't mean that she hadn't just crossed a line; one she was wasn't going to be able to uncross.

*****

Cameron knew that Sarah would want her to close the bathroom door before taking her clothes off, but even that thin divide seemed like too much of a barrier between her and the rest of the house while there was a clear and present threat. Jessie was still in the house. Cameron could not relax her vigilance so long as that woman was near John and Sarah.

She should have killed her… but Sarah had told her to let Jessie go, and Cameron had meant to. She had intended to step aside, but her body had not obeyed her command. There had been a… conflict. She had been unable to do what Sarah told her, even though she'd tried. Jessie was a threat, and she had needed, no _wanted _to eliminate her.

That was new. Cameron had not _wanted_ to kill anyone before. She had killed when the mission required it, because it was usually the simplest solution. She had been programmed to kill, but Sarah had explained to her the difference between being compelled to do something, and wanting it. Knowing that, Cameron could not blame her programmers for her desire to kill Jessie. She had wanted that for herself, and for Sarah.

Cameron processed that while she laid out the disinfectant, gauze and medical tape from the first aid kit. Taking a last look at the open door, she compromised by pulling it halfway shut before stripping down to her underclothes in order to asses the extend of the damage to her organic components.

The bullet wounds to her chest and shoulder were the most severe; they would require stitches in order to heal cleanly. There was also piece of skin missing from the side of her neck where a bullet had grazed her, and the right side of her face was abraded. The rest of the damage was mostly to her back and one knee. There were several places where the skin had been scraped away almost completely.

Cameron's clothing was likewise torn, but unlike her skin, it couldn't repair itself, and the blood would not wipe off. Holding up what had previously been her favourite pair of jeans, Cameron added their destruction to the list of reasons why Jessie should be killed. At least she hadn't been wearing her leather jacket.

"Harsh."

Distracted, Cameron hadn't noticed Lauren approaching the bathroom. The girl was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed, taking in the damage to both machine and wardrobe.

Cameron quickly reviewed the meaning of that word, cross referencing it with what she had discovered so far of current slang, and applying the results to the present context. "Yes," she agreed after a moment. "It is harsh."

Lauren smiled at that, but she didn't leave.

"Did you require the bathroom?" Cameron could not think of any other reason for the human girl to be standing there staring at her, so she tossed the jeans into the trash and began gathering up her medical supplies.

"No, no…" Lauren shook her head, coming all the way into the room and halting Cameron's effort to clean up by laying a hand on the back of her wrist. "I was just on my way downstairs, and I saw the door was open, and I thought you might need some help…"

Cameron looked down at the hand on her arm. She was not used to such casual contact from humans; it was disconcerting, but not unpleasant. She glanced back up at Lauren, "Where is your sister?"

"She's with Riley," Lauren explained with a shrug, taking her hand away as casually as she had put it there. "She needed someone else to focus on for a little while. She's still a little messed up about that Jessie woman." As she was speaking, Lauren retrieved a washcloth from the cupboard and turned on the faucet, adjusting the temperature until she was satisfied before wetting the towel.

Cameron watched her curiously. "Jessie wanted me to kill Riley," she said to fill the silence.

"You didn't though." Once the washcloth was soaked, Lauren turned the water off and wrung it out.

"No," Cameron conceded. She took a quick step back from the counter as Lauren raised the washcloth towards her chest. "What are you doing?"

"Helping," Lauren explained frankly. "Now hold still, you're covered in blood and asphalt."

Confused, and lacking any precedent to fall back on, Cameron submitted wordlessly, allowing Lauren to clean her up without further protest. The girl was extremely gentle, treating Cameron's injuries as carefully as if she were a human instead of a machine. It was… strange. John had occasionally assisted Cameron with injuries she couldn't reach properly on her own, but no one had ever offered to tend to her in this way before. Cameron did not understand why Lauren should care, and that uncertainty held her rigid while the girl worked her way around the machine.

"Does that hurt?" Unaware of the inner turmoil she had triggered, Lauren ran the cloth over Cameron's back, _tsking_ at a particularly raw patch of skin.

"Yes," Cameron answered honestly. "But it does not hurt in the same way that you feel pain. I am not emotionally affected by damage to my living tissue. Pain is merely a signal that I have been damaged… though in large quantities it can be distracting."

"Huh… cool." Lauren continued her ministrations, seemingly completely unaffected by such a bald discussion of Cameron's nature. "Some of these are going to need stitches," she added a moment later.

"There are surgical needles and thread in the first aid kit," Cameron informed her. "Are you familiar with their use?"

Lauren laughed shortly. "I took Home Economics in high school; they taught us how to sew a seam. Does that count?" Finished with the cloth, she tossed it into the hamper and got out the needle and thread. "I can't promise that it'll be pretty, but I can sew it closed."

"That is sufficient." Cameron tensed as Lauren took hold of her shoulders and turned her around so that her back was to the light. "You are not afraid of me…" She spoke suddenly, realizing what it was about Lauren's attitude towards her that was so different from that of everyone else who knew what she was. Even John was uneasy around her at times, but Lauren seemed as unconcerned as if Cameron were really just another teenage girl.

"Nope," Lauren replied easily.

"Why not?"

There was a long pause and Cameron could feel the needle dipping in and out of her skin, dragging the thread behind it as the edges of the wound were pulled together.

"You saved my life," Lauren answered finally.

"That was my mission," Cameron countered, not understanding.

Lauren sighed, tying off the string and snipping it before moving onto another tear in Cameron's back. "Your mission was to protect my sister," she began. "Sarah took my mom and hid me in a closet, I didn't know if I'd ever see either of them again, or my dad. Then you found me and took me with you. You didn't have to do that."

Cameron considered that. She had been offline when Sarah decided to run, taking only Lauren's mother, but in Sarah's place she would have done the same thing. As a human, Sarah could not protect more than one target at a time. Once Cameron had rebooted, she had been faced with a similar decision. Alone, she could have caught up with Sarah more quickly, but it had not seemed like the right choice to leave Lauren by herself. Living with Sarah and John had taught Cameron a great deal about the bond between mothers and their children. They needed to be together.

"I did not think you would wish to be parted from your family," Cameron confessed.

"Exactly!" Lauren agreed triumphantly. "You're not just a robot. You're alive, Number 5."

"No, I am a cybernetic organism." Cameron twisted once Lauren had snipped another thread. "Who is Number 5?"

"Hello, _Short Circuit_?It's only the best robot movie ever." She took in Cameron's blank stare and sighed. "He's a robot that comes to life when he's struck by lightning. He ends up with a crush on this woman named Stephanie who hides him from his creators because they think he's dangerous and they want to take him apart. It's a classic. We are so renting it."

"That wouldn't work," Cameron protested. "A burst of high voltage electricity could not bring a robot to life.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "It's a movie, not science. The point is that it questions the nature of humanity." She came around to Cameron's front. "Are there still bullets in there?" she asked, pointing at the clean, but still ragged holes in Cameron's chest and shoulder.

"Yes, there should be pliers in the first aid kit."

"Huh," Lauren said as she retrieved the tool. "This is officially the only time I've ever seen pliers considered emergency medical equipment."

"I get shot a lot," was Cameron's only reply as Lauren set to work on extracting the bullets. They weren't buried very deeply, and it was only the work of a few minutes to dig them out. Cameron could have done it herself, but she was beginning to understand that Lauren saw helping her as repayment for what Cameron had done for her, so she didn't point that out.

Lauren was just securing the last bandage when there was a knock on the half open door. "Cameron, are you in there?" John sounded hesitant, as if he wasn't sure if he was about to get an eyeful of naked terminator. Cameron often forgot that she was supposed to make sure she was fully dressed before opening a door.

"Yes, John," Cameron called back, "Lauren is assisting me with my repairs."

"Oh, that's good… are you dressed?"

Cameron looked down at herself. "How dressed?" she asked.

"All the way dressed, Cameron."

"No." All the way dressed meant at least one layer of clothes overtop of her underwear. Sarah had been very clear about that.

"Give us five minutes," Lauren chimed in, laying another piece of surgical tape. "We're almost done."

"Okay, meet me downstairs when you're ready Cameron; Mom's got a job for you."

"I will be there," Cameron answered quickly. Stepping away from Lauren, she began pulling on the clean clothes that she'd brought into the bathroom with her.

"You're kind of gone on her aren't you?" Lauren asked casually, leaning back against the counter as Cameron dressed.

"Gone?" Cameron paused, her jeans half on, unsure of what Lauren meant.

"You like her, Sarah," the girl elaborated. "You sure weren't listening to anyone else down there in the driveway."

"We're a team…" Cameron said slowly, finishing with her jeans and reaching for the pink t-shirt she'd left on the counter. She did not understand what Lauren was trying to say, but she didn't want to keep Sarah waiting.

"So if you're Number 5, she's kind of like your Stephanie?"

"No," Cameron answered shortly, after giving the comparison due consideration. "Sarah would not hide me. If she thought I was dangerous, then she would take me apart herself."

"You still like her though…don't you?" Lauren did not seem deterred by Cameron's response.

"I…" Cameron did not know how to answer that question. Lauren was putting an emphasis on the word _like_ that indicated something more than approval or simple affection. Cameron had come to the conclusion earlier that day that she wanted Sarah to like _her, _but she had not intended to use the word the same way Lauren was… had she? "I do not want to talk about this." Confused, Cameron ended the conversation along with her internal analysis of it. "Thank you for your assistance."

Lauren finally seemed to realize that Cameron was not enjoying this line of questioning and she raised both hands in apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, I was just curious… and you're welcome, any time."

Cameron nodded once and left the bathroom. She filed the conversation away to consider later. Right now Sarah had a job for her to do.

*****

It was close to 2 a.m. before Sarah could wash the blood off hands. Once she'd agreed to go, Cameron had made a successful raid of the medical warehouse, but on her return it had taken another nerve-wracking two hours for the terminator to piece the fractured bones of Jessie's arm back together and secure them with the little plates and screws that would hold them in place until they could heal.

No one but Cameron and Sarah would know how close the surgery had come to not happening at all. When Sarah had taken her aside and explained what she wanted her to do, the metal girl had flatly refused to help. In her opinion Jessie was far preferable helpless, and she had no intentions of doing anything to return her to threat status. Furthermore, she did not like the idea of leaving Sarah and John without protection, no matter how indisposed to causing trouble Jessie might have been at the time.

They had ended up making a bargain. Cameron would do as Sarah asked, if Sarah would stop fighting the terminator over the doctor's instructions, and allow Cameron to tend to her injuries. _Later_ was the only proviso Sarah had attached before grudgingly accepting the metal girl's terms. Cameron had frowned, but she had gone, and to her credit, she had not responded to Derek's ungrateful attitude upon her return.

Jessie was now sleeping off the ether in John's bed. Derek had initially intended to put her in Cameron's bed, insisting that since the machine didn't sleep, she didn't need it, but that had been the only moment when the terminator's control had slipped. Seeing the now telltale shivering of Cameron's fingers, Sarah had intervened, and John had backed her up, offering his own room. Riley was already settled into Cameron's he argued; Lauren and Sydney could share with her, and he was happy to take the couch.

Why it mattered so much to Cameron who slept in her room, Sarah didn't know, but she had to admit that she didn't like the idea of putting Jessie in her own bed either, so irrational or not, she was happy enough to indulge Cameron in this.

What she was less happy about was the meal the terminator had forced her to eat before she would start the surgery. Even hours later, the leftover Chinese was sitting heavily in Sarah's stomach. It had roiled there unpleasantly during the operation, and it wasn't resting any easier now that it was over.

Sarah stiffened as the door of the master bathroom was pushed open behind her. "Don't you knock?" She clipped, shutting of the water and reaching for a towel to dry her hands and arms.

"The door was not latched," Cameron replied easily as she stepped over the threshold. "Is it later now?"

Sarah turned and leaned back against the counter, running the towel through her fingers. Cameron was carrying an assortment of medical supplies, and her resolute expression suggested serious mayhem if Sarah attempted to put her off again.

"If it gets any later it's going to be early," she agreed wearily and hung the towel up over the bar beside the sink. "We might as well get it over with."

Cameron nodded and placed her supplies down on the counter. She ran a critical eye over Sarah, her gaze lingering on the scrapes and bruises that she'd gotten from her collision with the terminator and the street. "You will need to remove your shirt," the terminator ordered. "I need to examine your ribs and disinfect the abrasions."

Sarah would have liked to refuse, but there was nothing untoward in Cameron's request. She couldn't very well tend to Sarah's injuries through cloth. Without a word, Sarah slipped her long-sleeved black shirt over her head, grunting softly as the material pulled at half-formed scabs.

Without being asked, Cameron stepped forward to help, easing the shirt away from the wounds where it had adhered to the dried blood. When the shirt was off, the terminator reached innocently for the front clasp of Sarah's bra, but this was where Sarah drew the line. She caught Cameron's hand just as the girl's fingers settled on the fastener, holding it there between her breasts for a moment. "Nothing you need to see under there, girlie," she said softly before pulling Cameron's hand away and releasing it.

"Your injuries are extensive," Cameron replied accusingly.

"Yeah well, you're the one who threw a terminator at me." Sarah kept her tone light, as Cameron picked up a cotton pad and the bottle of antiseptic.

"You should not have come back," Cameron rebuked her, moistening the pad and lifting it to Sarah's cheek. Evidently she had decided to go with the top-down approach.

The sting of the antiseptic distracted Sarah momentarily, but she couldn't completely ignore the terminator's disapproval. "Seems a bit of an overreaction," she teased weakly. "You couldn't have settled for a scolding?"

"Ineffective. You never listen." Cameron's delivery was as deadpan as ever, and it took Sarah a minute to realize that she was going along with the joke.

"Good point." Sarah smiled once Cameron was finished with her face. "What's your next plan? There won't always be a handy terminator lying around."

"I could tie you up," Cameron mused as she worked her way down Sarah's neck, leaning close enough in her determination to do a thorough job that Sarah could feel the girl's breath on her wet skin.

Sarah shivered and blamed it on the fact that it was chilly and she wasn't wearing a shirt. "You'd leave me helpless?" she asked, focusing on the conversation instead of the slow slide of damp cotton over her collarbones and down to her chest. The terminator's overly gentle ministrations were starting to make her distinctly uneasy…

Cameron had bent so that she could reach the scrapes over Sarah's ribs and abdomen, but she paused and looked up at Sarah's words. "_You_ are never helpless," she countered with absolute sincerity.

"But I can get hurt," Sarah acknowledged.

"Yes." Finished with the antiseptic, Cameron straightened and put it back on the counter, tossing the used pads into the garbage. "I do not like it when you get hurt."

"I gathered that," Sarah agreed wryly. She tensed as Cameron began an examination of the ribs on her left side. The flesh over them was an angry, mottled purple and they ached like fury, but Cameron's touch was soft and almost disturbingly soothing.

Disarmed by the unfamiliar sensation of being taken care of, Sarah could feel the pressures and stress of the day draining out of her under Cameron's hands, leaving her defenseless against a slow and subtle tension that crept up from the soles of her feet, whispering through her body and thrumming in unison with the soft fingers on her skin. Startled, she recognized it as the same uneasy discomfort she had dismissed in the Jeep the night before, when Cameron had innocently brushed her lips.

Sarah refused to put a name to the feeling. It had been too damned long since she had been touched, that was all. Two years of being alone added to the adrenalin of a long and harrowing day, and her nerves would probably hum if she brushed up against a wall. Still… it was not a little alarming that she had relaxed that far around the terminator.

"I believe you have cracked two of your ribs." Cameron's assessment pulled Sarah's wandering attention back to the matter at hand. "They need to be wrapped, and you should take it easy." She suited actions to words, taking her hands away from Sarah to unwind a long elastic bandage.

Sarah's skin felt cold where Cameron's fingers had been a moment before, and she frowned more at that than the diagnosis. "I know what cracked ribs mean," she retorted harshly, regretting it almost instantly when she saw the subtle flash of hurt across Cameron's face.

The girl didn't respond, she simply began winding the bandage around Sarah's middle, leaving her feeling like even more of a bitch. "I don't like being useless," she offered by way of an apology.

"I know," Cameron replied neutrally, but she didn't look up from her task.

"Derek doesn't know," Sarah blurted suddenly, the need to atone for her attitude, not just now, but over the entire day, abruptly overcoming her reserve. "About the damage to your chip," she explained. "I didn't tell him."

Cameron's hands stilled midway through fastening the bandage. "You lied for me?" she asked.

Sarah bit her lip. "No…" she began, thinking of her wording, but Cameron deserved the entire truth. "Yes," she admitted slowly. "He suspects that you're unstable. I let him believe you're under control. Are you?"

Cameron finished securing the end of the bandage before stepping back, her dark eyes searching Sarah's face for some clue as to how she should answer that question. "I don't know," she confessed. "Sometimes, yes."

"But sometimes no," Sarah echoed her. She picked up her shirt off the counter for something to do while she thought, but the idea of putting the torn and dirty clothing back on was unappealing.

"Have you decided what you're going to do?" Cameron asked, the tone of her voice giving no clue about her feelings on the subject. She could be frightened, angry or completely indifferent as far as Sarah could tell.

"No," Sarah admitted. "I need to talk to John first."

"That is a good idea." Cameron nodded. "He fixed me before… he will know which areas of my chip were damaged."

Sarah pushed her brows together. "Can't you analyze that?"

Cameron shrugged. "I cannot trust my own diagnostic tools."

"So it could be anything…" Sarah swallowed hard. "Are you a danger to John?"

Cameron paused, considering. "I do not think so," she concluded at length. "There is currently no conflict with my mission to protect John."

Sarah realized that she would have to be content with that, though a frisson of fear licked down her spine. She did not ask if Cameron was a danger to her, she didn't want to know. "Good," she rasped instead, pushing away from the counter. "Thank you," she gestured to the medical supplies.

"You're welcome." Cameron seemed to understand she was being dismissed. She began to leave, turning around in the doorframe with a question in her eyes. "Sarah…" she began.

"Yes?"

"If you and John decide I need to be terminated, please don't let Derek or Jessie do it."

Sarah jerked, caught unprepared by the wave of compassion and understanding that swept over her in response to that direct, but painfully sincere, request. Shaken, she could barely meet the calm acceptance in Cameron's eyes. "I'll do it myself," she promised, her voice tight with all of the things she couldn't express. Guilt, regret, grief…

Cameron nodded, relief clear in the subtle loosening of her frame. "Thank you," she said quietly, leaving the door swinging open behind her as she left.

Sarah waited long enough to be sure that Cameron would be well away before leaving the bathroom. When she was certain, she snapped off the light and dragged her weary, bruised and aching body step by step towards the bed.

In a strange echo of the night before, her bedside lamp was once more switched on, revealing a second glass of water and another little white pill. Sarah realized that Cameron must have set it up before coming into the bathroom, and she didn't hesitate this time, swallowing the sedative with a gulp of water. She had made a bargain, and even if they had to burn Cameron's chip tomorrow, she intended to keep her side of it.


	7. Chapter 7

For Sarah, morning did not so much break as hit the floor with the damp squelch of a wet towel. She fought her way out of a drug-thickened sleep only to lay back and wonder why she'd bothered waking up at all. The day stretched out in front of her with all the promise of a dried-out corpse, and it was only habit and grim determination that forced her out of bed and onto her feet to face it.

She got dressed on autopilot, choosing her clothing by the simple expediency of taking whatever came to hand first. A shower was far beyond her capabilities before coffee, and she managed her teeth only because she was fairly certain that morning breath would seriously undermine her authority.

A glance at the clock in the hallway revealed that she had slept in. Way in. It was only a few minutes short of ten, and Sarah could hear the sounds of people moving around and talking downstairs, mingled with the overly enthusiastic commentary of a morning radio show.

The volume increased as Sarah made her way down the staircase, using the railing and watching her feet carefully so that she wouldn't miss a step. By the time she got to the bottom, she could distinguish Riley and Lauren's bright tones, and John's slightly deeper replies. It sounded like the kids had gotten themselves up.

Feeling every year her age, and a few more thrown in just for kicks, Sarah shuffled into the kitchen, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sudden glare of the eastward windows.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," John quipped, sliding out of his chair and heading for the coffee maker.

"Hmm…" Sarah couldn't quite bring herself to use the word 'morning,' let alone put a 'good' in front of anything at the moment. Looking around the room she squinted and blinked, rubbed at her eyes, and blinked again. The scene didn't change. The kitchen looked like the apocalypse had been and gone, and left its friends behind.

Dirty dishes overflowed the sink, the counters were covered with cooking ingredients; bags of flour and sugar, an open carton of eggs, and various bottles jars and packages. Mixing bowls smeared with batter, cutlery, spatulas and spoons littered every available surface, and even the floor bore the carnage of a baking experiment gone horribly wrong.

At first glance, Sarah didn't see any evidence of an actual product of this nightmare, so she could only assume that whatever had been made, it had already been either consumed or deemed inedible. She would have guessed the latter, but experience had taught her that teenage boys will eat almost anything, so she presumed that John at least had benefited from the experience.

"What…?" Sarah trailed off.

Lauren looked up from her spot at the table. She was sitting in front of Cameron, who was actually _on _the table, with Sydney in her lap and one of her feet in Lauren's hands, while the girl applied nail polish to the terminator's toes. Cameron held Sydney facing her, and she was amusing the baby by flicking the blue lights behind her eyes on and off. Far from being frightened, Sydney shrieked with laughter.

Riley sat down at the other end of the table, a pile of magazines and cosmetics spread between her and Cameron. She had clearly been in the middle of trying out some of the tips in the latest issue of _Flare_, and of all the people in the room, she was the only one who had the grace to look abashed.

"Wait." Sarah held up a hand when it looked like Lauren was going to speak. "I don't want to know… I just _don't_."

John pressed a cup of coffee into her hands with a characteristically sheepish grin and she managed a tight lipped smile in response. "I'm going to pretend I didn't see this," she said, chucking him lightly under the chin. "Try to clean it up before I'm all the way awake. I'm going outside."

She paused as she passed Lauren and Cameron. The terminator glanced up almost guiltily, as if she expected Sarah to take her to task for being a part of the madness.

Sarah nodded at the baby in Cameron's lap. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Cameron looked down at the smiling Sydney, her own lips curving in response as she bounced the baby awkwardly. Sydney giggled and waved her hands, catching a handful of the terminator's hair and stuffing it in her mouth. "She doesn't seem like much of a threat," Cameron explained, turning back to Sarah with mute appeal in her eyes.

Sarah felt like the world's worst curmudgeon. Presented with what was, objectively, an adorable domestic scene, she was inexplicably made crankier. Why shouldn't Cameron enjoy playing with a baby and getting her nails painted? _Because she's a deadly and potentially unstable machine_. Sarah's cold logic pointed out. But it was more than that. With her usually indomitable will blunted, Sarah could admit that she was jealous of the terminator's apparent levity. Faced with the possibility of imminent destruction, Cameron was managing to live in the moment, while Sarah could barely put one foot in front of the other.

It was irrational, and completely ridiculous, but she felt oddly left out.

Suppressing the urge to drag Cameron down with her, Sarah shrugged and left them to their fun. She took her coffee out to the porch, and it was there that she found the only other person it the house who might be feeling more wretched this morning than she was.

Derek sat on the porch swing, his feet up on the railing, a rifle leaning against his legs and a beer in his hand. He looked like a gun toting redneck and it cheered Sarah up immensely.

"Little early for that isn't it?" she asked, indicating the beer.

"You saw them in there?" Derek asked in turn, taking a swig off his bottle. He looked up to see Sarah's nod and he shook his head. "It's not too early."

Sarah took some petty joy in the fact that she was not the only one whose equilibrium had been shaken by a group of teenagers, and one cyborg, facing down the end of the world with baking, magazines and nail polish.

Derek reached down beside him and retrieved another beer, holding it up to Sarah without a word.

Tempted, but unwilling to drown her worries in alcohol before noon at the _very _earliest, Sarah waved the offer off with a regretful smile. "Thanks," she said honestly. "But I'll stick with my coffee."

"Suit yourself." Derek set the bottle back down on the porch.

Sarah stood for another few breaths, but in the end, she chose convenience over pride and took a seat next to Derek on the swing. They sat in silence while Sarah sipped at her coffee, and Derek drained one beer and started in on another. The last dregs were cold in the bottom of Sarah's cup when Derek finally spoke.

"Last night…" he started haltingly. "Last night there were a lot of things said. Things that didn't need saying."

Sarah waited, sensing that he wasn't finished.

Derek took another swallow and stared at his boots as if they could deliver him. "We were all upset. People do and say things they don't mean when shit like that goes down." He dropped his feet down from the railing and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes on the beer cradled in his hands. "I'm not saying that I agree with you, about everything, or anything… but we're all here for John, and I forgot that. He needs us to stand together, not tear each other down."

Sarah sat very still, letting Derek's disjointed confession sink through her lethargy and ease some of the anxiety gnawing on her soul. She knew better than to think that this meant he was going to stop fighting her decisions, but something indefinable that had been awry between them settled back into place, and she felt lighter for it. Theirs would always be an uneasy alliance, but they had the same goal, and they could work in the same harness so long as they both remembered that.

"Thank you," Sarah said sincerely, and "How's Jessie doing," she asked because if Derek could bend, then so could she.

"Still out of it." He shrugged. "But she ate a little, and she's taking the antibiotics and painkillers."

"Good…" An awkward silence followed her comment, and Sarah wracked her reluctant brain for something to extend the fragile peace between them. Her eyes alighted on a stack of real estate printouts and flyers piled carelessly on the deck beside the half-empty case of beer. "Were you looking at those?" she asked.

Derek followed her gaze and picked up the papers, flipping through them with his thumb. "Yeah," he confirmed. "A few of them are promising. I thought I might go and take a look at one or two today."

Seeing an opportunity to clear the house so that she and John could have a heart to heart about Cameron, Sarah nodded. "You should. Take the girls with you…" She smiled wryly. "They need something to do."

"Hah," Derek laughed. "And you want your kitchen back."

"There is that…" Sarah sighed. "I'll keep John and Cameron here. I want John to scan the net for anything in the news about the fight at the halfway house yesterday." She didn't need to give a reason for not sending Cameron with him. They both knew neither Derek nor Cameron would mind being separated.

"And Jessie?"

"I'll keep an eye on her," Sarah promised.

*****

"You _knew_?"

John recognized that tone. It was the tone his mother reserved for those moments in which he had screwed up more spectacularly than usual, and it conveyed disgust and disappointment in equal measures.

"Sort of…" he hedged, rubbing the back of his neck. "I thought it was just her arm at first."

"At _first_?" Sarah bit the words off, her expression suggesting his explanation had better be damned good. "And when you figured out it was something else?"

John dropped down onto the double bed, and looked at his shoes. "I didn't want to worry you."

He glanced up to see his mother close her eyes and take a deep breath. She was standing just inside her bedroom door. She'd brought him there as soon as Derek and the girls had cleared the driveway, and proceeded to grill him about Cameron's twitching.

John shifted uncomfortably on the bed, picking at the comforter and scuffing the carpet with the toe of his sneakers. This was always the worst part. He knew she wanted to yell, and also that she wouldn't. Not that his mother didn't yell; she was perfectly capable of tearing into him at a moments notice, and expecting him to take it. But that was only when she was scared. Any other time, she held her temper in careful check, too careful. Her calm frightened John far more than her fury.

He wondered sometimes, what it cost her to swallow all of that rage. Rage against Skynet, against the machines, against the world for getting in her way, and against him for not being as hard, as driven, as she was.

"John," Sarah began, and her voice was soft. "You can't keep hiding secrets like this from me." Opening her eyes, she crossed the room, sitting beside him on the bed. "Even if you're trying to protect someone… I need to know what's going on, so I can protect _you_."

"_You_ keep secrets," John protested, turning to face his mother, watching as she held back her first response to the accusation, her jaw clenching and releasing.

"I don't keep secrets that can hurt you," she said finally, reaching out to brush a hand over his hair.

John kept his opinions about that to himself. He was well aware that his mother would tell him only what she thought he needed to know and nothing else.

"Is that why we're talking about this now?" he asked instead. "You think Cameron will hurt me?"

"I don't know," Sarah admitted, surprising him. He had half-expected her to say that she had the thermite and the pliers waiting, and would he please go and fetch Cameron for her last rites.

"What do you mean you don't know?" John asked warily. "You _always _know."

"I mean," Sarah answered carefully. "That we need to think about this… I want you to talk to her, look at her chip. See if it can be fixed."

"And if it can't?" John was aware that his shoulders were stiffening and his jaw was taking on a mulish tilt, but he couldn't help it. He had his mother's stubborn streak, and it came out at the worst times.

Indecision, and something almost like guilt passed over Sarah's face. Standing abruptly, she ran her hands through her hair and paced the room. Jerking around to face him, she crossed her arms defensively. "I promised her I'd end it myself," she confessed, her voice raw.

John stared. "You talked to her about this?" he asked, shocked. "And you threatened to _kill_ her?"

"No." Sarah shook her head. "I mean yes… I talked to her, but it was a promise not a threat. She asked…"

"She asked you to kill her?"

"She knows it might be necessary," Sarah snapped, her eyes wounded. "Her mission is to protect you, even if that means her death."

"Just like you?" John growled, surging to his feet. "I don't want anyone else dying for me!" He _hated_ how alike they were, Cameron and his mother. Keeping secrets, thinking they knew what was best for him, even insisting on dying for him, as if their own lives meant nothing compared to his. What was the point of saving humanity in four years, if cost the lives of the people he loved right now?

"Too bad." Sarah was unmoved by his explosion. "Your job is to survive; ours is to make sure that you do."

John wondered if his mother realized she was grouping herself and Cameron together, using words like _death_ in reference to the destruction of a machine. He doubted it. "So you'll kill her?"

There and gone again, almost too quickly to identify, Sarah's mouth contracted in some remembered pain. "Only if I have to," she insisted.

John nearly didn't believe her. He hadn't forgotten the last time there had been a question of fixing Cameron or burning her. For all of her sympathy, Sarah had been immovable, merciless. But there was something in her eyes, something in the brief flash of pain he had seen that made him think things might be different this time. The way she had handled Cameron's threat against Jessie… there seemed to be a kind of understanding between the two of them now, one that hadn't been there before.

John hadn't forgotten the change he had made to Cameron's programming, or the reason he had done it. If there was even a chance that it was working, that Sarah was letting Cameron take on some of her burden, then he had to trust that it would be enough to save the terminator.

"You promise that you'll let me try to fix her?"

She didn't want to, he could see it in the way that she glanced aside and gritted her teeth, but eventually she nodded. "I will... but if you can't, then you have to let me do what needs to be done."

"Deal." John stuck out his hand, and with a tight-lipped smile, Sarah accepted it. They shook once, and John was struck by the realization that despite their positions, this was the first time in a long time that it felt like they were on the same side.

*****

Cameron looked back and forth between Sarah and John. "You wish to terminate me?" she asked, with the slightest tremble to her voice that made Sarah's heart drop down to her shoes.

"No," she cut into John's explanation, leaning forward over the table. "We just need to look at your chip, to see if John can fix it."

Cameron raised a hand to finger the hair over the access port in her metal skull. "You will put it back?"

John hastened to reassure her, but he fell silent at Sarah's sharp glance. "We will… but Cameron, he might not be able to even see what's wrong, or fix it if he does." Sarah paused, finding this harder than she had thought it would be under the girl's strangely vulnerable brown-eyed stare. "We need to talk about what happens if…" Sarah literally couldn't continue, and she cursed the unexpected swell of pity that wouldn't let her speak the bare truth they all knew.

.

"If I'm broken," Cameron finished for her, refusing to drop her gaze. "You promised…"

"I know," Sarah agreed. "No one else will touch it."

Cameron nodded. "You will let me say goodbye to John?" She glanced at the boy, and Sarah couldn't deny the affection she saw in those cybernetic eyes.

Sarah swallowed hard, wishing more with every minute that Cameron had never told her about her damned chip problems, or that Jessie had kept her mouth shut. Then they wouldn't be having this conversation, and she would not have given a promise to a machine that made her feel like a murderer. Because it would be murder. Sarah could no longer hide behind words like deactivate, destroy, terminate, and pretend they didn't mean the same thing where Cameron was concerned.

"Yes," she managed finally. "But we have to get this done _now_. If Derek gets wind of any of it, he'll be out for blood, and not just yours… or whatever it is that you use for blood."

"I'm ready." Brown eyes locked on Sarah's, and the unmistakable trust she saw there stole the breath from her lungs.

John cleared his throat, making Sarah jump, and breaking the moment. Feeling the back of her neck heat, she dropped her gaze, struggling with a rising sense of embarrassment that didn't seem to have any readily definable source. She shrugged off John's questioning look and he shook his head.

"Can we _not_ assume that I'm going to fail please?" he asked. "Just for fun, let's try being optimistic for once."

Sarah snorted and slanted a glance at Cameron, seeing her own amusement mirrored there. "Why not," she agreed, a smile in her voice. "What do you say, Tin Miss, feeling lucky?"

"Luck: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another," Cameron recited. "To feel lucky is to have a feeling of unexpected good fortune…" She tilted her head, pondering. "It seems irrational."

John rolled his eyes and Sarah grinned. "That's my girl," she teased, and this time she completely missed John's sidelong look of surprise, entirely distracted by Cameron's smile.

*****

They chose Sarah's room. Jessie was still in John's, and Cameron's own had been fully claimed by the other girls. If anything went wrong, then Sarah's bedroom was considered sacrosanct, and they could count on hiding Cameron there indefinitely.

John took several trips back and forth, bringing in his computer equipment and setting it up. He'd be using the same game platforms to analyze Cameron's chip that he had used on Vick's, but this time he'd give it enough juice to let Cameron help him. It was the only way for her to be able to get a physical look at her own chip, and hopefully between the two of them, they could figure out what the problem was.

His mother was hovering, unable to help, but refusing to go away and let him get it done. He sent her after a couple of surge protectors and some extension cords, just to get a little breathing room to work.

Cameron was out doing a last perimeter check before she allowed herself to be switched off. John could tell that it was worrying her, leaving them defenceless, but there wasn't an alternative. She'd admitted that her own diagnostics could be flawed, so the chip had to be looked at, and he couldn't do that with it still inside of her head.

John was trying not to think about what he was going to do if the chip was damaged beyond repair. He knew that Cameron would side with Sarah, but he wasn't sure if he could actually bring himself to hand her chip over and watch his mother destroy it. The very thought made him ill. Cameron wasn't just a friend… she was the big sister he'd never had, always looking out for him, nagging him and embarrassing him. He could admit that he was attracted to her, who wouldn't be? But Riley was a much saner focus for that part of his life, or so he'd instructed his teenaged libido. Mostly, it listened.

"Is it ready yet?" His mother was back, holding out the requested cords with a look of impatience.

"Almost," John assured her, turning to take the cords and weave them into the system he had running from the table they'd set up beside the bed. "Is Cameron back?"

"She's just checking the locks." Sarah shifted restlessly. "How long is this going to take?"

John sighed, fitting the last plug into the back of his laptop. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "It depends on what we find. It could take an hour, or all day."

"Hmm…" Sarah leaned over his shoulder as John sat down and switched everything on.

"Could you watch from a little farther away please?" he asked. "This is kind of complicated, and I don't need you looming."

His mother snorted, but she backed off, sitting on the edge of the bed. She was used to playing the spectator in these situations. Finding out that a computer system is destined to send robotic assassins after your son kind of takes the shine off of them. John could sympathize, but knowing his fate only made him more fascinated by technology, not less.

They both looked up as Cameron padded into the room, her face a neutral mask and a switchblade in her hand. "The perimeter is secure," she intoned flatly, crossing to the bed and handing Sarah the knife.

John watched without a word as his mother shifted so that Cameron could climb onto the bed and lay on her back, arms at her side. When she was settled, Sarah slid closer, one leg curled underneath her and the other hanging over the side of the bed, her foot resting on the floor. She raised the knife and Cameron turned her head obligingly, closing her eyes.

Sarah set the point of the blade to Cameron's head, but there she froze, her fingers shaking. Opening her eyes when the expected cut didn't come, Cameron looked up at Sarah.

"It's okay," Cameron reassured her. "I have adjusted my pain receptors. I won't feel it."

John saw his mother nod, but her hand didn't move. Taking pity on her, he left his chair and took the knife out of her fingers. "I'll do it," he offered, and walked around to sit on the other side of the bed so that he could reach Cameron more easily.

It wasn't anything like the last time he had done this. That had been a definitive mission. There had been no question of whether or not Cameron would be getting up again. This time it felt like torture.

Cameron shivered as John began the cut, and he wondered if she had lied to his mother about the pain receptors, or if it was fear that caused the slight trembling he could feel through the hand he had placed on her shoulder to steady himself.

Wide brown eyes slid up towards him when he folded back the half circle of scalp and hair and exposed the bloody shine of metal underneath. Shame and doubt were eating holes in his stomach, and John concentrated on the job in front of him, tying to avoid seeing the panic in those dark brown depths.

"Don't look."

Sarah's voice, softer than he'd heard it in a long time, broke the silence, and he glanced up to see her lay the back of her fingers against Cameron's cheek and tilt the girl's head towards her.

"Focus on me," she whispered, and John blinked at the unexpected warmth in her words. He didn't know what was passing between his mother and Cameron, but whatever it was, watching them felt like an intrusion.

A little confused, John turned his attention back to what he was doing. He wasn't fast enough though, to miss Cameron's hand groping across the blankets, or Sarah reaching down without looking, to take it in her own.

A lump formed in his throat and John jammed the knife tip under the circle of metal covering Cameron's chip, flipping it off before he could think about what he was doing. The pliers were in his back pocket, and he pulled them out, clamping them around the top of the chip.

"Stay with me?" Cameron pleaded just before he twisted it loose, and Sarah nodded.

"Right here," she answered, tightening her grip on Cameron's hand.

Neither of them spared a glance for him as John turned his wrist and pulled, drawing the chip free and turning out the lights for the girl lying between them.


	8. Chapter 8

It took longer than an hour.

Evening wore away at afternoon like the steady dripping of water against a stone. The clock in the hall ticked away first the minutes and then the hours, providing an even beat underneath the intermittent hum of traffic and birdsong filtering through the open window. One hour became two, and then three. Eventually the cars and birds gave up and fell silent, leaving only the clock and the steady tapping of keys.

Stiff and sore, Sarah had shifted so that she could lean back against the headboard, pulling her other leg up onto the bed and crossing one ankle over the other. She held Cameron's limp hand in her lap, refusing to worry about what John might think of it. Hell, Sarah didn't even know what _she _thought about it… She just didn't have any energy left to care.

Waiting. With nothing to do but sit and breathe through the tight band of pain around her chest and ribcage, Sarah found herself studying Cameron's hand. At first glance, it looked and felt like any human hand. There was nothing robotic about the carefully manicured nails, painted the delicate pink Cameron seemed to favour. There was nothing mechanical in the warm skin, fine hairs and shallow creases over relaxed knuckles. A few random, tiny freckles provided just the right amount of imperfection to perfect the illusion.

Pressing gently, Sarah slid her fingers over Cameron's, looking for the metal beneath the flesh. Searching for a bolted joint, a piston, something, _anything_, to remind her that the hand she was holding belonged to a monster. But there was nothing. Skynet had done its job too well.

Awake, Cameron could not fully shake the stiffness of the machine she was. For those who knew what to look for, it was there in every move that she made, every awkward tilt of her head and monotone word she spoke.

Asleep, or whatever the equivalent state of unconsciousness might be for a cybernetic organism without her chip, Cameron's body was relaxed, free and natural in a way that defied its components. She didn't look dangerous. Right now, with her doll-like features softened, and long curling hair spread in a halo around her head, Cameron resembled nothing so much as some misguided storyteller's idea of a mechanized Sleeping Beauty, except that no kiss was going to wake her from this nightmare.

Stilling her fingers, Sarah forced herself to relax her grip, abandoning the attempt to find tactile proof of Cameron's metal core. She didn't need to feel the machine to remember it was there. The hand that had been given to her so trustingly could kill her just as easily. More importantly, it could also kill her son.

When it came to Cameron and her chip, John had shown no more sense than a three-year-old reaching for the bright glow of a hot stove, and he was just as likely to get burned.

Knowing all of that, and with the memory of the last time they had gone through this fresh in her mind, Sarah should not have felt the need to hold Cameron's hand. Girl or machine, whatever Sarah called her, it didn't change the facts. Sarah should have been appalled by her misplaced sympathy, and sure in her determination to do what had to be done.

But all she felt was tired. Tired and sorry, for all three of them.

*****

As the natural light offered by the setting sun ebbed, the glow of the laptop's LCD screen seemed to brighten by contrast. Shadows slipped down the walls from their homes in dusty corners, creeping along the floor and engulfing the room in a monochromatic silence, broken only by the still-steady ticking of the clock.

By the time John shut off the computer and swivelled around in his chair, the room was almost dark. Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, he tried to wipe away the ache and grit of hours spent staring at a screen. It was a wasted effort, as wasted as those hours had been.

Pulled out of her reverie by the protest of leather and coiled steel, his mother stirred and lifted her head. Even in the semi-darkness, John could see the hope in her eyes flash and then fade. She knew him too well to deny the defeat he could feel hanging on his face.

"You can't fix it, can you?" Hollow and barely a question, Sarah's words nonetheless made the truth real.

"No…" John shook his head, pulling Cameron's chip free of the tangled combination of computer hardware and gaming platforms. He curled his fingers around it protectively. "Not now. In ten years …" he admitted, his voice flat. "In ten years, if I had access to the same resources as future John, then maybe..."

"We don't have ten years, John." Sarah said it gently, and John fancied he heard a note of real regret in the admonition. It figured, that now, when she had every reason to distrust Cameron the most, his mother would finally see the terminator as something more than a tool. Or maybe not. He'd seen his mother silently mourn the loss of a favourite gun, and no matter how many times her Jeep got lost, destroyed, or left behind, she always found a way to replace it. Sarah Connor might deny sentiment, but she was overflowing with it. Perhaps her concern for Cameron was spurred by nothing more than the attachment she harboured for any of the rare constants in her life.

It didn't matter. John had analyzed the chip, using what he'd learned from Vick's, and what little Cameron had been able to tell him, and the conclusion was as clear and inevitable as his mother's reaction to it would be. Cameron was broken, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Failure tasted like ashes in his mouth, and John swallowed. "I know."

"Tell me." The command was unexpected, and John looked up, feeling his eyebrows push together quizzically. His mother met the silent question with her usual impermeable wall, but John could see green fire burning in her eyes. Hope jumped unexpectedly in his chest. Like the last gasp of a netted fish, it groped after the chance for life.

Ruthlessly, John pushed it down, running his thumb over the surface of Cameron's chip. "There's still physical damage," he began hesitantly. "More than I thought."

Sarah nodded, but didn't comment. That much they had assumed.

John appreciated her silence as he struggled with finding words to explain a level of technology he only barely understood himself. "We were wrong," he continued finally, starting from the beginning. "The Resistance isn't reprogramming terminators, not the way we thought they were. They can't just erase Skynet's code and replace it with their own. That original program isn't only software loaded onto a chip, it's integral to the operation of the entire system. Without it, they might as well be human-shaped doorstops."

"So what _are_ they doing?" Sarah asked when he paused for a breath.

"They're…" Here John took a moment to organize his thoughts. "It's like they're taking an attack dog, chaining it to a house, and calling it a guard dog. They can't change the form, but by rewriting the secondary lines of code and putting in a set of instructions that allow that code to override the core program, they can manipulate the function."

"And this works?" Sarah sounded skeptical.

"Usually," John hedged. "But if either the secondary code or the reversal instructions stop working, then the terminator goes back to doing what it was originally programmed to do."

"Like trying to kill you," Sarah observed neutrally, the very evenness of her voice betraying her tension. "And this is switch that got flipped in the explosion?"

Encouraged by the fact that his mother was still asking questions instead of sending him for a hammer, John nodded. "Sort of… the physical damage to Cameron's chip corrupted _some_ of the resistance coding, but most of its still there and running. The bigger problem is with the reversal instructions. They're intact, but they should be automatically giving the resistance code priority whenever there's a conflict with the original program, and that's not happening. Without that override, the resistance code is useless, just background noise."

"So the twitching is…?"

"An outward manifestation of the conflict between her core program and the resistance code," John explained. "Think of it as a computer freezing up, or crashing."

Sarah frowned. She glanced down and John followed her gaze to her lap, where her hand still lay wrapped around Cameron's. He watched as her fingers loosened, almost drawing free, and then closing again. John could see her jaw tighten before she turned back to him, her expression a characteristic hybrid of fiercely repressed desperation and pure grit.

"I need a reason why that isn't a death sentence, John. If this override isn't happening, then why are you still alive?"

John hesitated before answering. This was where things were a little confusing. Even Cameron didn't understand it completely.

"That's the question…" he admitted. "The reversal instructions were coded to be automatic, so that there would be a smooth transition of priority back and forth between the resistance lines of code and Skynet's. Somehow, Cameron managed to convert the instructions so that they can be run manually, but the corruption to both lines of code makes it complicated… and it doesn't always work."

"Complicated," Sarah repeated, tension bleeding into the forced calm. "What does that mean exactly? What happens when it doesn't work?"

John shrugged, an automatic nervous reaction under his mother's intense scrutiny. "Then she kills birds, and throws people into trucks. Skynet never designed terminators to be able to manipulate, or even direct, their own coding. They weren't meant to be anything but tools or weapons, and it doesn't seem like future John was able, or willing, to change that. Cameron isn't even consciously _aware_ of half of the directives coded into her chip. She shouldn't be _able_ to do what she's doing… but she found a way."

Sarah was quiet for a minute, her focus turning inward as she processed John's explanation. "So," she began eventually. "What you're saying is, Cameron didn't kill you because she manually overrode the directive? She _chose_ not to kill you? And every day she's making that decision over and over again, and at any time, she could fail, or decide differently?"

"Essentially… yes." John agreed reluctantly, trapping Cameron's chip between his palms, as if by hiding it he could protect it from harm. "But I trust her, and if she was going to screw up there, it probably would have happened already."

This time the pause was longer, and John could almost _see _his mother weighing the information, balancing Cameron's value against her threat. The idea of a machine with free will obviously didn't make her happy, but sixteen years of experience told John she was conflicted. That insight, paired with the fact that she still hadn't let go of Cameron's hand, gave a last breath of life to the hope struggling inside of him.

"Mom…" he pleaded, discarding pride in the hopes of reaching her. "Please… just give Cameron a chance. She's been doing all right so far, and now that we know, we can help her. I've made crappy decisions, so has Derek, and so have you. We all screw up sometimes… "

"John." His name, spoken in a tone known only to mothers, stopped his babbling cold. "You're asking me to stake your life on the whim of a machine… a machine that even you admit isn't reliably under her _own_ control, let alone anyone else's."

Somehow, his mother's forced objectivity sparked that answering mulish streak in John. Discarding the half-formed notion of begging like a five-year-old who wanted an ice-cream cone, he crossed his arms instead.

"She's not just a machine anymore, Mom," John argued, looking down pointedly at the joined hands in her lap. "Not to me, and not to you. Choice is part of what makes us human."

"That's right," Sarah answered him coldly. "_Us_, not them. Choice makes _them_ dangerous."

"Now you sound like Derek," John shot back.

It hit home. An almost invisible tightening of her mouth betrayed Sarah's reaction to that barb. For a moment it looked like she was going to argue, but then her expression turned thoughtful, and she sighed, a long, slow release of breath that seemed to carry with it all of the tension that had built up between them. "Give me the chip," she demanded, holding out her hand expectantly.

John frowned suspiciously. "What are you going to do?"

The expression was wasted. Sarah wasn't looking at him anymore. Instead his mother's attention was focused on Cameron, her own brows furrowed pensively. Whatever answers she was looking for in the girl's serene face, she must have seen something there to reassure her. Raising her eyes back up to John's, she managed a half smile.

"I'm going to give her a choice."

*****

"Hold still."

Doing her best to obey, Cameron leaned forward over the bathroom sink while John sewed the flap of skin and hair back down over her replaced chip. He was stitching extremely slowly. Cameron shifted her weight, restless without knowing exactly why.

"Cameron!" John sounded frustrated.

Ordering her body to remain still, Cameron waited impatiently for him to finish. "Where did Sarah go?" she asked. It was the first thing she had said without prompting since coming back online, and she was hoping that the question would help her to concentrate. Sarah had been there when Cameron opened her eyes, but the woman had only squeezed her hand once and left, leaving the explanations and clean-up for John.

He had done his best, but Cameron wanted to speak to Sarah about it. She had questions that needed answers only Sarah could give her.

"She said she needed to think," John told her firmly. "She'll be back later, and you're not supposed to follow her."

"I don't understand," Cameron protested, trying to make sense of what had happened. "I'm broken. Sarah should have terminated me."

John tied off the last thread and snipped it. "There, you're done." He put the thread away and set the needle aside to be sanitized. "Maybe she thinks you're broken in a good way," he reasoned as Cameron straightened up.

She eyed him doubtfully. "There is not a good way to be broken."

John shrugged. "_Less_ bad way then," he compromised with a smile.

"Sometimes you don't make any sense," Cameron accused him with a slight frown.

"Welcome to the human race," John quipped. "We do that. Admit it; it's what you like about us." And without warning, he reached out and pulled the startled terminator into a hug. Cameron froze. Unsure of how to react, she held perfectly still, waiting for some indication of what she should be doing in response to the arms wrapped around her shoulders.

"Thanks for, you know, deciding not to kill me," John muttered, releasing Cameron before she had a chance to decide on a course of action, backing out the door and leaving a very surprised terminator standing alone in the bathroom.

*****

Cameron found Sarah in the shed.

The other woman stood with her back to the door, leaning forward over the crematorium that dominated the small structure, her hands flat against the blackened surface of the stacked cinderblocks.

"You weren't supposed to follow me," Sarah rebuked the terminator without turning around. Her voice was low, but the strain running through it was obvious.

Cameron hesitated briefly before stepping through the door, closing it gently behind her. She didn't need to see Sarah's face to read the sudden rise in tension as the latch caught, and it troubled her. Logically, if her presence was causing Sarah distress, then Cameron should leave, but she didn't want to. More than a need for answers had drawn her here.

"I know," she admitted quietly.

Sarah's hands tightened on the edge of the crematorium, her fingers smearing pale lines in the soot and ash and revealing the cold grey of cement underneath. "And yet here you are," she drawled when Cameron didn't elaborate. "Exercising that free will already are we, girlie?"

Cameron eyed Sarah warily. Sarah's words were casual, almost teasing, but her tone was dangerous. The contrast was unsettling. "If you did not want me to find you, then you should have left the property," Cameron pointed out logically.

Dropping her head, Sarah leaned hard against the cinderblocks, a sound escaping her throat that could have been either a laugh or a whimper. Cameron jerked forwards without conscious thought, her hand halfway to Sarah's shoulder before she caught herself. Sternly ordering the limb to relax, she forced it back to her side, trembling with the effort.

Oblivious to the conflict going on behind her, Sarah finally turned around. Tired eyes dipped briefly to Cameron's shivering fingers before lifting to meet the terminator's intense stare. "What do you want from me, Cameron?" she asked wearily.

There was more than one way to answer to that question, but only one that Sarah was looking for. "I want to know why," Cameron said simply.

Sarah snorted, pressing back against the crematorium and crossing her arms. "That makes two of us… "

"You have not decided yet?" Unsure, Cameron shifted, glancing quickly behind Sarah at the gaping rectangle where so many terminators had met their end. She wondered if it was the thought of Cameron's own pyre that had brought Sarah here, and if so, whether that thought was motivated by relief, or regret.

"I thought I had…" Sighing heavily, Sarah uncrossed her arms and ran her hands through her hair. Dark smears followed the tracks of her fingers over her temples, standing out starkly against the pale white of her skin. "Did you know?" she demanded.

"Know what?" Cameron asked, confused.

"That your programming was still half Skynet?" Sarah demanded. "That the override was malfunctioning, that all this time you've been one screwed up calculation away from going bad and killing my son?"

Taken aback, Cameron didn't answer right away. "No," she said finally. "I knew there was something wrong, but much of my coding is hidden from me. More than I thought." She paused. "I do not believe John was in danger."

"But you aren't sure," Sarah insisted. "So how can I trust you?"

Cameron hesitated. She did not understand how she could be so certain, it was all still such a confusing jumble of impulses and conflicts. Her two sources of code were bound together, co-dependent, and riddled with contradictions and redundancies. Corruption to both sides made it even more difficult to determine where one ended and the other began.

Cameron should not have been able to choose between directives, but the evidence, and John, assured her that she could. Most of the conflicts were subtle, varying shades of grey that could have come from either of her programmers. But when it came to John, the choices were clear black and white.

"I will protect John Connor," Cameron asserted forcefully. "That is my mission, and it is also my choice. John risked his life to fix me. I will risk my existence to protect him."

"Can you promise me that?" Sarah asked, half- threatening, half-pleading.

"Yes." Cameron resisted the urge to move closer, holding her position with difficulty and willing Sarah to believe her. It was more than a desire to prevent her own termination. Cameron _wanted_ Sarah to believe her, to believe _in_ her. "I can promise you that."

"Okay…" Sarah breathed out slowly, her eyes falling shut as she exhaled.

Cameron waited, but Sarah didn't elaborate. "Okay, what?" she asked after a half-minute of silence.

Sarah snorted softly, opening her eyes to pin Cameron with a look of pure exasperation. "Okay, I made the right decision," she allowed. "The rest is up to you."

"Up to me…" Cameron repeated thoughtfully. "And if I believe I am a danger to John, or to you… Would you terminate me then, if I asked you to?"

The question, delivered in a monotone that belied the emotion behind it, banished the half-amused annoyance from Sarah's face. "Is that what you want?" she demanded sharply.

Cameron tilted her head, meeting Sarah's green-eyed stare calmly. "Is it what _you_ want?" she echoed.

"I…" Sarah's eyes dropped, flicking briefly back at the crematorium before focusing on the patch of floor between her feet. "No," she admitted quietly.

"But would you do it?" Cameron insisted, losing the battle to keep her distance and stepping forward jerkily.

Pushing back against the cinderblocks as Cameron moved closer, Sarah didn't raise her eyes. "Only if I had to." she answered hoarsely.

Cameron did not understand why Sarah's obvious reluctance should reassure her, but it did. It was, she realized after a moments thought, exactly the response she had been seeking. The fear that had plagued Cameron since the explosion, intensifying as it became more and more obvious that she was damaged beyond her own ability to repair, eased.

"Then I will do my best," Cameron said simply. "Will you help me?"

Sarah looked up finally when Cameron stopped with mere inches separating them. The corners of her lips were tight with strain, but she didn't move away. "I'll help." she confirmed, straightening for the extra sliver of space that it gave her.

They stood that way for a breath, and then two. Sorting rapidly through the flurry of impulses clamouring for her attention, Cameron chose one that had its origin in no program that she knew of and chose to follow it. In one swift movement, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Sarah's shoulders and carefully applying a safe amount of pressure to pull her close. It was as near a replication of the hug that John had given _her_ less then an hour before as she could make it.

"Thank you for deciding not to kill me," Cameron said quickly, releasing Sarah and making her escape before the other woman had a chance to protest.

*****

"_Thank you…"_

The hug came and went too quickly for Sarah to react, and then Cameron was gone. True night settled in her wake, stealing the last of the light and warmth from the day, and leaving nothing but a weary chill behind.

Sarah watched it go through the open door of the shed, standing pale and still under the colorless glow of power-saver bulbs in rusted sockets. When the only light left in the yard came from behind her, she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as if she could hold onto the last fragments of heat that had been so briefly trapped between the terminator's body and her own.

It was futile gesture. The only warmth that met her fingers was the bright and hot bloom of pain from her ribs, and Sarah wasn't sure whether to be sorry or relieved.

It wasn't that it had been a _pleasant_ hug. Cameron had approached the embrace as if it were a mission. She had performed the motions perfectly, stepping in, putting her arms around Sarah and squeezing, but that was all it had been, a performance, a series of steps followed exactly. There had been no give to the girl's rigid pose, no softness in those long thin arms. Cameron no more understood how to hug than a toaster did.

And yet… The girl had _tried. _Awkward and inexperienced as she was, with no evidence that her attempt at appreciation would be positively received, she had still tried.

Unexpected, confusing and even a little frightening, Cameron's effort was also impossibly, _achingly,_ human.

Cameron was grateful to be alive, and she wanted Sarah to know it.

Sarah didn't know what to do with that. Gratitude was a rare commodity in her life these days, and even rarer was someone being brave, or determined, enough to risk Sarah's ire in order to offer it. The last person she had thought to look to for either was a machine she had come very close to killing.

Headlights, sharp and bright, cut into Sarah's thoughts, pulling her back to the real world with a jerk. The crunch of gravel and growl of the truck cut off abruptly, replaced by slamming doors and lilting voices.

Derek and the girls were home.

Despite the considerable temptation of staying right where she was as long as possible, Sarah allowed duty to lift her hand and flip the light switch before moving her feet towards the house. There was a small, petty part of her that wanted to hide, hoarding her last scrap of sanity, but the majority of her knew better. She would cope because she had to, there was no other choice.

So Sarah returned to bedlam.

In the few minutes it had taken her to decide to come inside, Lauren had already coerced Riley and Cameron into helping her put something together for dinner, and Derek had brought a wobbly Jessie out to the table, which he was now trying to set around John and his laptop, while balancing a babbling, wriggling Sydney in his free hand.

Riley and Lauren filled the room with descriptions of the houses they had seen, and the occasional back and forth about the meal preparations. John made the appropriate noises, clearly more focused on his computer than real estate opportunities or cooking, but that didn't seem to bother anyone. Jessie was a more enthusiastic audience. She seemed to be trying to re-establish her place in the group, even tolerating Cameron's presence without comment.

Loud, messy, and completely human, it should have been a welcoming scene. But instead it acted like a sheet of sandpaper on Sarah's poor, bruised psyche. Despite the Aussie's efforts, there was still definite tension between Riley and Jessie. A home-cooked meal wouldn't change the fact that Lauren and Sydney were being hunted. Derek would inevitably continue to be a pain in the ass, and in the middle of it all, a damaged terminator with intermittent free will and a loose regard for personal boundaries, grated cheese with single-minded determination.

It was too crowded, too complicated, too domestic, too _everything_. Before she had even gotten all the way in the door, Sarah was already turning around. Feeling like a coward, she retreated to the porch and dropped onto the steps as her legs suddenly lost the strength to hold her up. Spent, Sarah leaned forward over her knees and buried her face in her arms.

*****

The sound of the screen door opening behind her, and the groan of wooden boards protesting under a weight they hadn't been designed to accommodate, surprised Sarah not at all. Without looking, she could feel Cameron's eyes on her back, their steady pressure posing a silent question. Ignoring the terminator had proved to be even less effective than shooting her lately, so Sarah didn't bother to try.

"What _now_?" she asked, sitting up with undisguised reluctance.

"You're upset," Cameron observed, her neutral tone implying that the answer was as obvious as if Sarah had asked for the colour of the sky. "I don't like-"

"To see me upset, yeah… I'm starting to get the idea," Sarah interrupted the terminator, making no attempt to hide her exasperation. "Have you tried not looking?"

The pause was almost long enough to convince Sarah that either she'd imagined the girl's presence, or Cameron had somehow left without a sound, but eventually the terminator answered her.

"I can't help it." Cameron sounded almost as frustrated as Sarah, and that was unexpected enough that Sarah actually turned around. The girl looked down at her intently, her usually smooth face tightened in confusion that gave way almost immediately to wide-eyed concern.

"You're crying!" Cameron declared, as close to panic as Sarah had ever seen her. She looked away and back almost frantically.

Sarah raised a hand to her cheek, startled when her fingers met wetness. She hadn't noticed when the tears that had been burning in the corners of her eyes had fallen over.

Cameron stepped away nervously, her eyes going to the door, "I should get John…"

"No!" Sarah reached out and caught Cameron's wrist, jerking the terminator back. "Don't." She loosened her grip slightly when Cameron stopped pulling. "He doesn't need to see me like this."

Cameron's stricken eyes suggested that seeing Sarah cry wasn't doing _her_ equilibrium any good either, but she stepped back to the edge of the stairs.

Relieved, Sarah let go, draping her arm back over her knees and staring out across the dark yard. Her initial irritation with Cameron's intrusion faded as the tears dried on her cheeks and Cameron said nothing more about them. Of anyone who could have seen Sarah fall apart, Cameron was the least likely to judge her for it.

"May I sit?" The question came after five minutes of almost companionable silence and Sarah shrugged, offering mute permission.

Cameron sat as neatly as ever, leaving enough space between them so that there was no chance of accidental contact. "Thank you," she said after a pause.

Side by side, they watched the stars come out. Or at least, Sarah did. She didn't know what Cameron was looking at, and she didn't intend to ask. So long as the girl wasn't staring at _her,_ she didn't really care.

Cameron didn't make any attempt at conversation. She showed no inclination to ask why Sarah had been crying, or when she was planning to go back inside. Cameron didn't tell her it was going to be okay. She just sat, hands on her knees, eyes straight ahead, giving no outward sign of curiosity or impatience.

Her undemanding presence was just as strangely soothing as Sarah had found it before. More so. This time it wasn't merely the absence of expectations that Sarah found restful. In the dark, Sarah could almost admit that just having Cameron _there_ was comforting. Which lead to the unsettling realization that it hadn't been the terminator's intrusion that had irritated her, but the fact that Sarah had not only _expected_ Cameron to follow her, but had _hoped_ she would.

"I understand," Cameron said abruptly to the empty yard.

Sarah frowned. "Understand what?"

"Why you're out here." Cameron turned her head, brown eyes wide in the weak porch light. "It was easier, when it was just you and John… before me, and Derek and everyone else. You're afraid that we'll come between you, distract you, that you won't be able to keep John safe with all these people in the way. You're worried that you can't handle it."

Dumbstruck was too mild a word. "_How_…" Sarah shook her head. "Howdo you _know_ that?"

"Because it is the same for me," Cameron answered easily, looking back out over the moonlit grass. "With John, I know what to do. I am less… confused, when it is just him."

Sarah wondered what it said about _her_, that the only person who seemed to understand how she felt, wasn't even properly a person. Was she becoming too much like a machine, or was Cameron becoming too human? The line between them seemed to be blurring. "Then what are you doing… out here, with me?"

Sarah's question brought the confusion back to Cameron's profile. "I am not sure." She tilted her head. "I think it is easier, only caring about John. But it is also… lonely." Cameron turned back to Sarah, shifting a little nearer on the step. "You are alone as well. I want to help."

Denial was automatic. "I don't need your help!" Sarah snapped.

"Yes, you do," Cameron insisted stubbornly.

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"I do." Cameron turned towards Sarah, lifting a hand and laying her fingers on the side of Sarah's neck, over her pulse. "When I came outside you were crying, your biological readings indicated acute distress. Now you are not crying, and your stress levels have dropped." She removed her hand. "I made you feel better."

"I…" Sarah couldn't actually refute that logic without outright lying… and she was pretty sure Cameron would know if she tried it. "That doesn't mean I _need_ you…" she muttered mulishly.

"I'm sorry," Cameron apologized with every evidence of sincerity. "We're you enjoying being upset?"

From anyone else that question would have been sarcastic. Coming from Cameron it just made Sarah feel like a belligerent child. "No…" she admitted grudgingly.

"Then you need me," Cameron said, and her smile was smug, or at least near enough to make Sarah reconsider that whole sarcasm thing. Cameron was getting too damned good at this.

"Don't push your luck," she warned.

"It's okay," Cameron reassured Sarah, almost patronizing. "It will be our secret." She stood and held out her hand. "You help me, and I'll help you."

"We'll see." Feeling the beginnings of a smile teasing at her lips, Sarah took the offered hand and allowed Cameron to bring her to her feet. She wasn't prepared to be pulled into the terminator's arms.

Startled at Cameron's second attempt at hugging in less than an hour, Sarah waited a beat for Cameron to repeat her earlier performance and let go. When the grip around her shoulders didn't show any signs of weakening, she waited instead for a panic that never came. Confusion, yes, and a healthy dose of exasperation, but no fear. Somehow, despite the terminator's blasé use of her strength to hold Sarah in place, there was nothing threatening about the awkward embrace. Which in and of itself should have been more unnerving than it was.

"Uh… Cameron?" Sarah pushed against the girl's chest, but she might as well have been trying to move a wall. "What are you doing?"

"Hugs make people feel better," Cameron explained without relaxing her grip.

Sighing, Sarah abandoned brute force in favour of logic. "I thought you already made me feel better."

Silence. Sarah breathed shallowly, her ribs protesting the rigid embrace. She could feel Cameron's chest expand and contract against her own, the terminator's superfluous breath blowing across the side of her neck. Under Sarah's hands, Cameron's synthetic heart beat out a slow and steady counterpoint to the staccato race of Sarah's own.

The hug was both frighteningly intimate, and painfully awkward. Cameron was wearing one of her characteristic spaghetti strap tops, and Sarah was uncomfortably conscious of the warmth and texture of Cameron's skin under her fingertips. The terminator's hair, brushing against Sarah's cheek, bore the sharp tang of blood and strawberries, a disturbing mix of the machine's stitched scalp and the girl's taste in shampoo.

"Maybe_ I_ need to feel better…"

Part question, part plea, and so quiet that Sarah wouldn't have heard it if Cameron's mouth hadn't been just under her ear, the terminator's confession touched a raw nerve. Gritting her teeth against an involuntary rush of compassion, Sarah fought to remain indifferent. But Cameron's need was almost tangible between them, and before she knew what she was doing, she had relaxed, sagging wearily against the terminator.

"Fine," Sarah muttered, her lips grazing Cameron's hair. "But your technique could use a little work."

"I'm doing it wrong?" Worried, Cameron pulled back just enough so that she could look at Sarah without releasing her.

"Well…" The anxious expression on Cameron's face made Sarah smile, seeing suddenly, the inherent humour of the situation. "You're _kind _of squeezing me."

"That's what a hug is, Sarah," Cameron argued doubtfully. "An embrace, to squeeze someone tightly in your arms, usually with fondness."

"Technically, yes. But there are levels of pressure, and this," Sarah struggled demonstratively. "This isn't comfortable. A hug shouldn't hurt."

"Oh." Cameron relaxed marginally. "Is that better?"

Sarah sighed "Not really," she said, and watched Cameron's face fall. "Look, pretend I'm fragile."

"You _are_ fragile."

Stung, Sarah frowned. Compared to Cameron she was may as well have been made out of antique china, but the girl didn't have to rub it in. "_More_ fragile," she corrected with a huff. "And here," as Cameron loosened her hold, Sarah managed to get her arms free and she repositioned Cameron's grip, sliding the terminator's hands down to her waist. "Don't clutch at me like I'm about to run away, it's a hug, not a trap."

"But the likelihood of you running away is very high…" Cameron protested, clinging a little tighter.

Caught, Sarah scowled up at Cameron, inexplicably annoyed by the inch the girl had on her, and not appreciating Cameron's too-accurate assumptions. "I'm not going anywhere," she snapped. "So relax!"

Just to prove her point, Sarah tentatively returned the embrace, running her hands up Cameron's bare arms to her shoulders. It was surreal, being this close to Cameron, and Sarah blamed the strangeness of situation for the fact that she forgot to check for any sign of the metal underneath Cameron's appealingly smooth skin.

"Okay…" Wide-eyed, Cameron watched the progress of Sarah's hands, blinking when they reached their destination and stayed there, pressing gently to either side of her neck. Leaning into the contact, she softened her hold until she was no longer clutching so fiercely at Sarah's sides and back.

Sarah let out a sigh of relief when the pressure on her ribs eased. It was replaced by a much more pleasant caress as Cameron smoothed her hands gently over the thin fabric of Sarah's shirt. Pulling Sarah closer, Cameron turned her head so that she could rest her cheek on Sarah's shoulder.

"Better?" She asked again.

"Much," Sarah confirmed. Almost comfortable now that she could breathe again, Sarah let herself relax. It was supposed to be for Cameron's sake, the hug… but that didn't mean she couldn't let go, just for a minute or two.

Cameron's hands glided softly up Sarah's back, leaving a trail of anxious nerves in their wake as the girl tucked herself in even closer. Sarah accommodated the shift automatically, bringing Cameron more completely against her. The girl was warm in her arms, and surprisingly pliant. It felt… nice.

Too nice.

The pleasant tingling that Cameron's stroking hands were raising gave way to a sudden shiver, bringing that realization abruptly home. It felt _way_ too nice. "Cameron…" Sarah began guardedly, pulling away. "This-"

The banging of the screen door interrupted her, and Sarah snapped her head up, freezing when she saw John standing wide-eyed in the doorway. If the expression on his face was any indication, the hug also _looked_ way too nice.

"John!" Sarah yanked herself out of Cameron's hands, stepping back quickly and trying desperately to deny the warmth they left behind. "I… what do you need?"

"It's… um…" John looked from Sarah to Cameron and back again. "Dinner's ready," he managed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "And I've found something, online, that you should look at…"

"Right." Sarah jumped at the chance to get out of this awkward tableau as gracefully as possible and moved past him into the kitchen. "You'd better show me then."

"Okay…" John followed her with a last glance back at Cameron. "Is she…?"

"Don't worry about it," Sarah cut him off. There were five other people sitting at the table, and she did _not_ want to have this conversation in front of Derek, Jessie and the girls, if at all. "What did you find?"

"Oh, it's um…" John sat down at the table and pulled his laptop forward, tipping the screen back so that she could see it. "I was looking for strange news reports in the week before the drive-by shooting where the other Sydney was killed, and I found an article about a homeless man showing up at a free clinic, claiming that he got burned by a ball of blue lightning.

"Let me guess," Sarah asked dryly. "He also saw a naked man walk out of it?"

"No…" John said, scrolling down and pointing. "He saw _three_."


	9. Chapter 9

Jeanette Harris recognized the girl walking through the newly repaired door of Haven House immediately. Her middle-aged heart stuttered and leapt like a startled rabbit, kicking at the back of her ribs and sending normally lazy blood rushing through her veins at a speed much more suited to younger fluids. Fighting to keep the instant, and wholly reasonable, fear from showing on her face, Jeanette didn't make any sudden moves, but she eyed the phone at her elbow, acutely aware of a certain three digit number that she could, and definitely _should_ be using in a situation like this. Her fingers twitched.

"I wouldn't do that."

Jeanette snapped her eyes back up. The girl's voice was completely neutral, without a trace of anything recognizable as a threat, but her eyes… There was something crucial missing in that wide brown gaze. Mercy, Jeanette decided. In all of her time working with girls on the fringes of society, and those who abused them, she had never seen anything so empty. She had never felt so helpless. Jeanette shifted her hand away from the phone and the stare softened almost immediately.

"May I help you?" She asked carefully, falling back on her secretarial script while her heart, exhausted, ceased its mad jumping and settled down into a worried quiver.

Equally careful, the movement slow and smooth, the girl pulled a piece of folded paper out of the pocket of her purple leather jacket and offered it to Jeanette. "This is a letter from Lauren Bird. I'm a friend. She asked me to pick up her belongings."

Jeanette looked between the letter and the girl. She made no move to take it. "I don't want any more trouble…" She fought for a fragment of her usual self assurance, gripping hard on the edge of the desk as if to anchor herself.

The girl tilted her head. "I don't want any more trouble," she echoed, extending the hand with the letter a little further and setting the folded paper down between them when Jeanette didn't let go of the desk to accept it. "I only want Lauren's things."

Sceptical, but curious, Jeanette picked the letter up and scanned the note quickly. There were no more than three lines, identifying the holder as one Cameron, and requesting that the clothing, personal items, and baby things Lauren had left behind be released to her. It was signed by Lauren Bird, and Jeanette recognized the handwriting and signature from Lauren's admission documents. Relief eased some of the tension out of her shoulders.

"Where is she?" Jeanette dared the question because she had to.

"Safe," Cameron answered simply.

Jeanette wanted to believe her. Lauren hadn't been the average teenaged screw up. She was smart and kind, and had seemed determined to make something out of her life.

And then she had disappeared under the most unusual circumstances Jeanette had ever been a witness to. Circumstances that had given her nightmares for days, about guns and shattering glass, and a full grown man being tossed through a door like he was a doll and the door nothing but paper. Circumstances centered around this very girl.

The only reason Jeanette wasn't already bolting for the door was that while Lauren had certainly been afraid, it hadn't been _Cameron _that she had been running from. On the contrary, from Jeanette's perspective, before flying bullets had sent her diving for cover behind her desk, Lauren had seemed _worried_ about the slim brunette.

The whole affair smacked more of a rescue than abduction, and Jeanette tended to trust her gut instincts in these situations. That made this girl, however personally unnerving, one of the good guys in her books. Still…

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Cameron didn't shrug, but a subtle shift in her posture suggested the gesture. "You don't."

Jeanette hesitated. Her first responsibility was to the girls under her care. Lauren had been one of those girls, but she was gone, and the rest of them still needed a protector. Everything about this girl suggested that she would walk straight through Jeanette, or anyone else who stood in between her and what she wanted. The question was _what_ she wanted, and what she was prepared to do to get it. What she _had_ done.

Jeanette nodded, folding the paper slowly with shaking fingers and handing it back to Cameron. The girl took it without comment, and Jeanette withdrew her hand, punching a code into the intercom and trying to keep the quaver out of her voice as she summoned Paige, one of her volunteers, down to the front office. The girl chirped an acknowledgement and the line went dead.

They waited.

On the other side of the desk, Cameron didn't shift or fidget; she stood perfectly still, her eyes trained steadily forward. Jeanette squirmed under that unrelenting stare. She shuffled a few papers, lined up her pencils and kept her own eyes down. Unable to bear the silence, and the mystery, she finally asked;

"Did you save her life?"

"Yes," the answer came without hesitation, as if Cameron had been expecting the question. Jeanette took a deep breath.

"You'll keep her safe?"

This time there was a pause. "I will try," Cameron answered finally, and Jeanette raised her head to see the first glint of something that might have passed for emotion in the girl's eyes.

"Thank you," Jeanette whispered and Cameron nodded, her gaze pulled away by the buzzing of the interior door as Paige stepped through with a smile.

Jeanette sat quietly while Paige introduced herself, and Cameron explained why she was there. Paige looked to her once for approval and Jeanette managed to endorse Cameron's request without betraying her inner turmoil.

"Right then, shall we?" Paige indicated the hallway and Cameron stepped around the desk to follow. She paused at the corner, reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of bills and set them on the desk.

"For the door," she explained at Jeanette's puzzled glance, and then she smiled. It lasted a moment, no more, only the space of time it took for Paige to glance back to see what was keeping Cameron, but that was long enough.

Cameron disappeared through the door, and Jeanette watched her go, unable to shake the feeling that she and the slight, but deadly, girl understood one another perfectly.

*****

Cameron followed the girl named Paige to the storage room, remaining silent in the face of her chatter. She nodded and smiled at the appropriate places, but didn't offer to add to the conversation. Paige asked no questions, she simply kept up a steady stream of reassuring nonsense, avoiding with practiced ease any awkward silences that might unnerve one of the frightened young girls this establishment generally catered to.

Cameron collected the clear plastic bags that Paige pointed out to her, taking care to let the girl help once her sensors informed her she was already holding enough to burden a human of her size and weight. There were four bags in total, mostly Sydney's things, little clothes and toys, and a collapsible stroller.

"Do you have a way to get this all home?" Paige asked as they walked back up the hallway.

"I have a car," Cameron reassured her.

They made it to the Jeep without incident, and Cameron loaded the bags into the backseat. She was careful to say thank you and smile. Then she waited to make sure that Paige got back inside safely. The woman at the desk watched over these girls, and she had trusted Cameron with one of her charges. Cameron respected that responsibility. Also, Sarah would not be happy with her if anyone got hurt.

Pulling out of the parking lot, Cameron flipped open her cell phone and hit the speed dial for Sarah's number.

"Cameron," Sarah answered after they had exchanged security codes.

"I have it," Cameron said, turning onto the highway.

"Are you being followed?"

Cameron glanced into her rear-view mirror, confirming the blue pick-up four cars back as the same one that had tailed her out of the parking lot of Haven House.

"Yes," she confirmed.

"Good." There was a pause, then "are you sure about this?"

"Yes." Cameron turned a corner, checking to make sure that the truck took the same one. "Is everything ready?"

"Just waiting for you… Kacey and the baby left an hour ago."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Did you eat lunch?"

"Cameron! This is hardly the time," Sarah snapped.

"You promised." Cameron waited for Sarah's exasperated affirmation, then closed her phone and glanced back up at the rear-view mirror. She barely saw the road or the cars behind her, caught off guard by the slight, and completely involuntary, smile on her lips.

*****

The house was empty. Not literally, the furniture that had come with the house was still there, the same pictures hung on the walls. Photographs of happy strangers were still stuck to the fridge with gaudy poly-resin magnets. Sarah and John had never brought much in the way of personal items with them, so it was not the absence of those either, but something less substantial that had turned the house that had been their home, back into someone else's house.

Sarah ran her hand down the side of the kitchen doorway. Wherever they went, the kitchen always seemed to become home first, and it was always the room she missed the most. She and John had never been the couch-sitting, television-watching or game room kind of family, and bedrooms, hers anyway, were so often the setting for clock watching, insomnia and nightmares. But even the future leader of humanity and his mother needed to eat, and the kitchen was a place they could just be mother and son.

With Cameron's arrival, and then Derek's, the kitchen had also become a center of operations. It was where they made their plans, where personal grievances were left at the door. In the kitchen they had neutral territory, sitting around the table they were a team.

Lauren and Riley, even Sydney, had given Sarah a glimpse of what else the kitchen could be… a place for them all to be a family.

Sarah took one last look, and then flipped off the light and said goodbye. It was time to move on. Again.

Feeling like an intruder as she made her way through the rest of the house, Sarah did a final sweep to make sure that no remnant of their time there had been left behind.

With the ease of long practice to draw on, Sarah, John and Cameron could have been packed and ready to go within an hour of the news that there were not one, but _three_ terminators loose in L.A., two of them with unknown targets, but the addition of five people, one of whom was an infant, and another injured, meant that it wasn't that simple.

Even so, it had taken less than forty-eight hours. They had put most of the weapons and other ordinance into one of the caches Derek had set up when he and his men had arrived from the future, and anything else that couldn't be easily transported had been destroyed.

John's computer equipment was the only thing other than the necessary items like clothing and toothbrushes that had gone with the rest of the team to the motel. If everything went according to plan, they'd need it.

So easily this life was erased.

Sarah checked her watch as she returned to the main floor. She had about five minutes until Cameron would be back from the halfway house. Kacey had been sent safely off to her mother's with the baby, and on a weekday afternoon there was no one else near enough to get in the way.

Time to get into position.

*****

Cameron pulled into the driveway with one eye on her mirrors. There had been no sign of the truck for a few blocks, and she concluded that the other terminator had most likely fallen back in order to plan his assault. He knew what he was dealing with. The 800 series had never been known for their imagination, but they got the job done.

Cameron considered the possibility that the other terminator would wait to engage, and discarded it. He had to assume that his target was aware of him, there was no advantage in delaying, and very little chance to gain the element of surprise. He would most likely come straight for Sydney's last known location, which was in the company of Cameron. She didn't have much time.

The house was still, but the living room lights were on, and Cameron could see the television playing through the window as she climbed the steps. Sarah would be waiting out of sight and, hopefully, out of the line of fire.

Sarah had fought her about that. She had argued that catching the terminator between them made more sense, and Cameron had not been able to find any flaw in Sarah's logic, save that she could not do her job if she was worrying about Sarah getting hurt. A worry that had surprised the machine with it's intensity. She was not used to anyone but John triggering that level of protectiveness. Unfortunately, that reasoning would not have swayed Sarah, so Cameron had simply refused to argue. If the plan called for bait, then Cameron would provide the bait.

Walking in through the front door, Cameron experienced a twinge that she identified, with some surprise, as regret. It was unexpected, but not inexplicable. She had spent almost a year here with Sarah and John, even Derek. Longer than any other place she might have called home. She had felt secure in her place here, confident. She knew her mission; she knew all of the exits, the likeliest routes of attack and the most strategic places to set up an ambush. Things would be different now. Nothing was straightforward anymore.

Sarah had left guns for her in the coat closet, and Cameron retrieved them with a quick check to make sure they were loaded properly. The 9mm she tucked into the back of her jeans, but she held onto the Mossberg as she moved into the living room to wait.

*****

Had he thought about it, the terminator might have considered other avenues to his target than the front door, but he had not been programmed to think, only to kill. He had a basic implanted personality, and programming that allowed him to simulate human behaviour. A small database of common knowledge was enough to get him though simple conversations, and that was all. He had not infiltrated the police department. That was beyond the capabilities of his program. He had simply killed an officer and taken the uniform. When his attempt to apprehend and terminate Sydney Fields at Haven House had failed, he had retreated and healed, then returned to her last known location to wait.

A preliminary scan of the house revealed three heat sources. Two large, and one small, like a child's. The smaller heat source was almost merged with one of the larger ones, presumably being carried. The two combined heat sources were within ten feet of the entrance. That was all the information the terminator needed.

The front door was hollow core pine, painted white with a brass handle. The terminator forced it open, splintering the wood around the lock and door frame with a single push. Stepping inside, he registered movement to the left, the same direction as the dual heat signatures. Turning, he lifted his gun and fired repeatedly; ignoring the female terminator he had followed here in favour of the blanket wrapped bundle in her arms.

She twisted, protecting the child with her own body, and fled out the opposite end of the room. Without the ability to plan beyond the elimination of his target, the terminator followed. He only made it a few steps before a flash of fire and sound tilted the world on its axis, and ripped the floor out from underneath him.

*****

Wood and wire screamed as they tore apart. The impact of shrapnel from metal pipes and plastic casings provided a staccato accompaniment, and the heavy base of the charges themselves filled the air until mere human ears were overwhelmed.

Her feet braced on top of the coffee table, a mere two by four foot rectangle of safety set underneath the fuse box in the basement, the detonator clutched tightly in one fist, her thumb firmly on the button, Sarah pressed her back up against the wall and covered her face with her arms. Fragments of ruined floor boards and shredded insulation rained down around her, making a veritable weather pattern out of the remnants of what had, five seconds before, been the living room floor.

Ripped and torn chunks of the loveseat and arm chairs splashed as they hit the half foot of water swirling under her feet, but the impact Sarah was waiting for didn't come. Panic sent adrenalin roaring through her veins, and she lowered her arms, looking up to find the terminator clinging to the edge of the hole left by the explosion. Dangling by one hand from the fractured floorboards, he was safe above the flooded basement and the live cords twisting like poisonous snakes under the water.

In the dimmed light of the basement, his eyes glowed, and they cast around, scanning every corner of the room before settling on Sarah. Target acquired, he raised the gun in his other hand and aimed it at her heart. Dropping the detonator, Sarah clawed her own gun free, but not before the sharp retort of gunfire blasted her ears.

His first bullet missed her, and Sarah's poor abused ears heard it smash into the concrete wall behind her and spin off into the water with an anticlimactic little splash.

She jerked herself to the side and squeezed off a few of her own, aiming wildly while trying to make herself as small a target as possible, but there was nowhere for her to go. The table she was perched on was the only thing keeping her safe from the electric current running like liquid death through the water on the floor.

The second blast of the terminator's gunshot came simultaneously with a groan as one of the boards that he was clinging to began to tear loose, and he dropped a foot, sending the bullet that might have killed her somewhat lower.

Sarah fell to her knees with a strangled yell as a line of fire knifed across her thigh, ripping through skin and muscle, and releasing a warm, wet heat that soaked her jeans in an instant.

Gritting her teeth against the dark spots dancing in her vision, Sarah forced her head to rise, and her eyes to focus. The terminator still had his gun. Swinging wildly with the groaning of the floorboards, he brought it around for another try.

Unable to move, Sarah could only wait for the next shot, but it never came.

Like an angel descending from heaven, Cameron dropped from the sky. She hit the other terminator, and their combined weight snapped the floorboards and sent them both into the water.

"Shit!" Sarah clawed her way up the wall towards the fuse box, gritting her teeth against the throbbing of her leg. The seconds ticked by too quickly in her head, almost half a minute passing before she managed to switch the power off.

Getting down from the table was a nightmare Sarah didn't ever want to repeat. There was no time for finesse, she simply held her breath and threw herself off. The shock of the cold water cleared her head enough that the added pain didn't threaten to steal her consciousness, and Sarah half-walked, half-crawled over to the limp bodies, pulling her tools out of her pocket as she went. She couldn't waste precious seconds checking on Cameron, so she passed her by and aimed for the other terminator.

His scalp opened easily under the knife, and Sarah tossed it aside once she'd exposed the metal skull underneath. Another moment, and the tip of a screwdriver took care of the cover. With five seconds to spare, she gripped the pliers and yanked the chip out of his head.

The timer in Sarah's head reached two minutes, and she slumped over the body of the terminator. Clutching his chip in her hand, she waited for Cameron to rise and carry her out of this wet hell. If there was ever a time she would welcome the metal girl's strange concern, this was it, but nothing stirred in the water behind her.

Another minute passed, and Sarah couldn't wait any longer. Her leg feeling like a leaden weight, she heaved herself up and turned, bracing herself against the lifeless machine underneath her.

Cameron lay in a silent heap on her side, her back to Sarah, and her limbs splayed awkwardly under the water. Thick brown curls tangled with fragments of wood and carpet fibres, floated in a halo around her head.

Beside her, propped up by the blanket-wrapped hot water bottle that had been masquerading as Sydney, lay the Mossberg rifle that Sarah had left for her, and that Cameron had, inexplicably, chosen not to use.

Worry twisted in her gut as Sarah pushed off of the other terminator and dragged herself towards Cameron, but she fought it off.

Shoving the gun and blankets out of her way, she shook the metal girl's shoulder roughly.

There was no response.

Light headed from blood loss and shock, Sarah couldn't think of any other way to rouse the machine, so even though it was ridiculous, she shook her again, rasping wearily, "Cameron?"

Nothing.

Four minutes now and darkness was beginning to creep back into the corners of Sarah's vision. She groped around under the water for the knife she had used on the other terminators head. Once she'd found it, it took two tries to close her fingers around its smooth sides, and she cut strips off of her pants with shaking hands.

Binding the ragged bullet wound in her leg took almost all of Sarah's remaining strength, and she used the very last dregs of it to dig the cell phone out of her back pocket and hit John's speed dial.

"Mom…?" His worried voice came from a long way away, and she nodded before remembering that he wouldn't be able to see her.

"Cameron's hurt…" Sarah managed roughly. "Tell Derek…" oblivion threatened and she fought it off. "Tell Derek, come and get us…"

Sarah could hear John yelling for Derek even as the phone fell from nerveless fingers. Unconsciousness was only moments away, and Sarah hooked an arm over Cameron's limp form to hold herself above the water, letting her head come to rest in the shallow dip between the girl's hip and ribs.

*****

Sarah woke to darkness, the sound of boots sloshing through water, and rough curses as someone tripped over a chunk of floorboard. Deprived of sight, she registered the almost familiar smell of blood and strawberries, a scent that was fast becoming a symbol for the walking contradiction that was Cameron.

Other smells, stagnant water and wet wood, slowly invaded her consciousness, and then there were firm, but gentle, hands on her, pulling her up and away from Cameron's body.

"Sarah…" It was Derek's voice, uncharacteristically concerned. Sarah tried to answer, but her throat wouldn't work. She clutched at Cameron, catching hold of the girl's jacket.

"Damnit, Sarah." Derek tried to pry her fingers loose. "We don't have time for this. We'll have to burn the house down with them in it."

"No…" Sarah coughed weakly, refusing to let go. "She comes with us."

Derek swore again, backing off, and Sarah fumbled with the girl under her hands, drawing out the 9mm gun from the back of Cameron's pants and aiming it shakily in the direction of Derek's voice.

"She comes."

Derek sighed audibly. "You can't see a thing can you?"

Sarah blinked rapidly, her eyes beginning to adjust to the dim light and she realized that the darker shadow that was Derek was actually three feet to the left of where she was aiming. Lucidity returned on the heels of vision, and she lowered the gun abruptly, wincing as it knocked against her thigh.

Derek stepped forwards and took it out of her hand, shoving it home in his own belt. "Got that out of your system?" he asked testily, hauling Sarah to her feet.

Sarah cried out as weight hit her injured leg. Supporting her until she steadied, Derek knelt and ran his hands over the crude bandage.

"Shit… that's not a scratch, but I don't think it's bleeding anymore." He rose and pulled Sarah's arm over his shoulder, tugging her towards the stairs. "Let's get you out of here, John is worried sick."

Sarah resisted, and Derek dragged her a step behind him before realizing she wasn't cooperating. "We're not leaving her here," she persisted, her teeth beginning to knock together from the chill of too long spent lying in freezing water.

"Christ." Derek glanced back at the still shadow in the water. "Look, the machine is broken, and I don't think I can carry her anyway!"

"Try!" Sarah ground out. "Or did you want to explain to John why you left her here when there are two other terminators out there and you're the only uninjured adult left to face them?"

It was partly a bluff, and partly the truth. Sarah had had worse injuries, and John had been an adult from the moment he had strangled Sarkissian, but the principle was sound, and Derek knew how to calculate the odds.

"Fine!" he snarled. They stared at each other, and Derek dropped his eyes first. He helped Sarah over to the stairs and made sure she was secure against the railings before returning for Cameron.

In the end, Derek had to drag the machine. He hooked his hands under Cameron's arms and hauled her through the dirty water, across the floor and up the stairs. Sarah followed, biting back curses as she hitched her way up the steps. Shock had retreated, and her body was coping, belligerently. The last of the fog in her head cleared as she limped along after Derek and Cameron, overseeing the process of getting the girl's body out of the house and into the backseat of the truck. Derek was sweating heavily by the time he got the machine all the way in and settled in a way that would have been more or less comfortable for a human girl, but he didn't complain.

He tried to insist on leaving Sarah in the truck as well, but she ignored him. While he went back inside to drag the other terminator up the first floor, she went to the shed to get the thermite. She needed to keep busy. Sitting and staring at Cameron's limp body, waiting like a jilted lover for the girl to come back from wherever it was she had gone, wasn't an option. Neither was even considering the possibility that Cameron _wasn't_ coming back.

This wasn't the first time the girl had taken longer then two minutes to reboot. The same thing had happened when they had rescued Lauren and her family. The delay hadn't seemed to affect Cameron then, and Sarah refused to believe it wouldn't be the same this time. They needed the machine's strength and abilities now more than ever. _She_ needed Cameron… for what she wasn't exactly sure, but it had something to do with the girl's solidity, her persistence, and the reluctant comfort Sarah was beginning to take from Cameron's attentions.

Back in the house, Derek took the bag of thermite from Sarah without a word, pouring it over the inert terminator and piling a stack of chairs on top of the machine. He added in the last of the charges, and they retreated to the truck before setting them off.

Sarah leaned back heavily against the hood of the truck as she watched her house start to burn. The other terminator's chip was a solid weight in her pocket, and she hoped that whatever information John could extract from the metal and silicon would be worth it.

"Time to go," Derek reminded her from the other side of the truck, and if he had any reaction to the destruction of their home, it wasn't visible. He was wearing his soldier's face, hard and empty.

"I know." Pulling her burning eyes away from the flames beginning to lick and rend at the curtains in the kitchen window, Sarah wrenched the door open and stepped up onto the running board. A hopeful glance into the back seat stopped her cold, half-in half-out, one hand frozen on the back of the seat and the other reaching reflexively to the back of her jeans for a gun that wasn't there.

Cameron was awake.

Soaked and filthy, her delicate features smeared with dirt and blood, Cameron was sitting up, staring blankly between the front seats, through the cracked windshield at the burning house… and her eyes glowed red.


	10. Chapter 10

It was only an illusion.

Sarah had just enough time to register that she was wounded, weaponless, and probably about to die, before Cameron turned her head and the reflection of firelight fell out of her eyes, laying reddened shadows over her wet hair and jaw.

Relief met adrenalin head on and Sarah sagged under the weight of that collision. Only her grip on the seat saved her from sliding back out of the truck.

"Are you okay?" she managed to croak as she hauled herself up, settling wearily into her seat as Derek did the same, only far more gracefully, on the other side. He didn't seem to have noticed Cameron's brief case of artificial red-eye, or Sarah's reaction to it, and for that she was as grateful as present circumstances allowed.

Cameron didn't respond. She stared quietly at Sarah for a moment, and then looked away, apparently indifferent.

It stung.

Sarah tried to shrug it off. After being shot, spending an unknown amount of time unconscious in a flooded basement, and setting her house on fire, a little thing like being snubbed by a terminator shouldn't bother her. Frankly, it shouldn't even bother her on a good day. The fact that it did was more unsettling than the slight itself.

Still, rational or not, constrained by Derek's presence, and her own uncertainty, Sarah had no choice but to swallow the hurt and buckle her seatbelt. Whatever might still be wrong with Cameron, it would have to wait.

Derek ignored them both. Obviously unhappy that the machine wasn't dead after all, he offered no comment on Cameron's uncharacteristic reticence, or any other subject. Not really looking for another argument, or even conversation, Sarah was just as glad that he wasn't talking to her. Worried and in pain, she sat slumped against the passenger side door, letting her body hoard its reserves.

The awkward silence held until they got to the motel, and then there were the easy, meaningless words of assistance offered and accepted, as Derek helped Sarah out of the truck, and eased her down onto the pavement.

Cameron followed them blankly like a dog on a leash, and Sarah tried not to dwell on the uncomfortable realization that she would much rather have had Cameron helping her out of the truck, and Cameron's shoulder to lean on when her stiffened leg refused to hold her weight.

John met them at the door.

"Mom!" He replaced Derek at Sarah's side, easing her over the sill and into the room to sit on the edge of the bed. "Are you okay?"

"Fine…" Sarah reassured him, stroking a hand over his hair. "Just a graze."

Derek snorted but held his peace. He went to the other bed to check on Jessie, no doubt sleeping off another dose of pain pills.

Lauren and Riley sat at the room's only table, a deck of cards between them, and Sydney asleep in her carrier on the floor. They looked up with twin glances of concern, hands stilling around playing card fans.

Sarah waved them off, her focus on Cameron. The machine had come to a halt at the foot of the bed, her stance mechanical and her eyes empty.

"Cameron…" Sarah tested, and the terminator tilted her chin down as stiffly as if she really was the tin man and had gone to rust. She met Sarah's eyes, but there was nothing for Sarah to see there but her own reflection. Sarah swallowed her worry. "Go get cleaned up and put on some dry clothes," she suggested instead of asking questions she might not get any answers to, or at least not the answers she wanted.

Cameron maintained her rigid silence, but she turned and went through to the adjoining room, so Sarah could only hope she was doing as she was told and that this strange stilted behaviour was temporary. That their Cameron was still in there, somewhere.

Digging into her pocket, Sarah retrieved the chip she had taken from the other terminator and handed it to John. "Think you can get anything off of this?"

"I'll try," he promised, taking it from her. "But there may not be anything to tell us where the other two are, or what they're up to…"

"I know," Sarah agreed. "But they came here together, so they might have been staying together." Her eyes returned to the doorway Cameron had disappeared through, and her voice fell to a whisper. "Anything is better than nothing."

*****

For the third time, John applied himself to the task of gleaning meaningful data off of a piece of technology that was as far ahead of the equipment he had to hand, as the latest iPhone was ahead of a piece of string with a dented tin can tied at either end.

Behind him, he tried not to listen to the hiss of pain through his mother's teeth as Lauren cleaned and stitched the gouge that the terminator's bullet had torn out of her leg. The wound wasn't life threatening, and for that he thanked anyone that might have been listening. It could have been so much worse.

John had almost panicked when his mother had called him. He hadn't been able to imagine a scenario outside of Cameron's death, and his mother's near death, that would have left her stranded and asking for help from Derek of all people. But here they both were, safe and mostly sound… even if Cameron had seemed a little strange when she came in…

His mother had sent Cameron away to shower as if everything was fine, but now, a half hour later, the terminator still hadn't returned from the adjoining room. Derek had turned on the news, but if he focused, John could just hear the faint hiss of water under the drone of the weather forecast.

Cameron had been soaked and filthy, her brown curls a sodden mess, and if the brief summary Derek had given him was accurate, she and his mother had spent over an hour lying half-submerged in a cold and flooded basement. If anyone deserved a chance for a long hot shower, John figured Cameron did, but he was beginning to get a little worried. The terminator wasn't generally one for dawdling in the bathroom.

Sarah had already been in and out of their shower, submitting to Lauren's ministrations only after she'd gotten warmed up and clean. The fluffy white motel robe she'd shrugged into to give the girl access to the wound, looked strange on her. It was too… something. Too transient maybe. John wasn't used to seeing his mother in such an in-between state. She was always either flat on her back, or ready for a fight. Mostly the latter, sometimes both at the same time.

"All done." John heard the snick of scissors as Lauren snipped the last thread, and the rustle and clatter of medical supplies being put away.

Sarah thanked her gruffly, and John half turned to see his mother lever herself upright and test the leg. She grimaced, but stayed on her feet. "Good enough," she allowed, and limped over to press a hand to his shoulder.

"Don't even ask!" John said before she could open her mouth. "I've barely started, and there's no point in hovering. You need to rest."

"I need to know what we're dealing with," Sarah corrected him.

"It's a process, Mom." John tapped his way through another roadblock, getting infinitesimally closer to being able to access the chip's visual memory. "This one's tougher than Vick's was." Or Cameron's, he continued silently, and a squeeze of his shoulder told him that his mother's mind had followed the same path. It was still weird, the idea of him and his mother being on the same side, keeping secrets about Cameron from everyone else. Weird and unexpected.

And speaking of unexpected… John still hadn't decided exactly how to feel about the hug he'd caught them in. He'd wanted his mother to trust Cameron… let her help. But something about that hug had unnerved him just a little. It had looked almost… he didn't know how it had looked. Not the way he would have expected anyway, if he _had_ ever expected to see Sarah Connor hug, or be hugged by a machine, which he hadn't really.

"Why don't you take a break?" Sarah suggested, and John looked up at her quizzically. Less then an hour was hardly enough work to merit a break, but she met his eyes squarely and tipped her head slightly towards the adjoining room. Ah, Cameron. His mother was worried about her too then.

"Sure," John agreed, stretching. "I wouldn't mind a shower myself. I'll go and see if Cameron's done."

No one other than his mother commented on the announcement, or even seemed to notice him leave. John didn't know whether to be grateful or miffed. Riley had latched onto Lauren like a drowning sailor to a life raft, even adopting the other girl's easy acceptance of Cameron. Though, that last could be a result of Cameron tossing Jessie around like a rag doll, something that had to have done Riley's soul some good.

Either way, she wasn't clinging to him the way she had those first few days. Which was good… mostly, but it did leave him feeling just a little bit like an outgrown toy. She wasn't even giving him as much attention as she had when she was still trying to lure him away from Cameron's evil clutches and now, thanks to his own meddling, Cameron wasn't following him around anymore either.

John was well aware that the little lump of resentment skulking around in his chest was irrational, and probably a result of being a teenaged boy, but that didn't really help.

"Cameron?" he called after making sure the door was closed firmly behind him. Nothing but the rush of the shower answered, but the bathroom door stood open, and light spilled out into the room, glistening in the puddle of water spreading slowly across the tile towards the carpet.

"Cameron…?" John repeated a little louder. A few steps and he was around the corner and ducking into the bathroom, prepared for the worst.

"Whoa…" John choked, and turned, averting his eyes from the very much alive and very _naked_ terminator standing under a spray of water. She hadn't pulled the curtain across, which was why his feet were in a puddle that was rapidly becoming a lake. An _ice-cold_ lake.

"_Cameron_!" he groaned, exasperated, and still more annoyed than worried. "What are you doing?"

She didn't answer him, so John risked a fast glance over his shoulder, this time taking in both the fact that Cameron was staring blankly at the wall in front of her, and that she was shivering… violently.

"Shit," John cursed, looking away and quickly reviewing his options. Cameron might not understand the human concept of modesty, but he was pretty sure he shouldn't be the one to drag her out of the shower… and they couldn't just leave her in there to freeze. Which left…

*****

"Mom?" Sarah looked up from the motel pamphlet she was pretending to read as John poked his head around the door. He was obviously trying to keep his voice low enough not to disturb the others, and avoid unwanted questions, but if anyone had been curious, his overly stealthy hiss and the way he was clutching at the door frame was a dead giveaway that something was wrong. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Yeah." Sarah went for casual, and managed it well enough, or at least better than her son, but her heart quickened as she levered herself up and off the bed.

She limped a few steps and then John was there under her arm. Leaning on him for support, she let him lead her into the other room. The first thing she saw was the spreading water, and the sodden hummocks of Cameron's clothing making a trail to the bathroom.

"What…?"

"Easier to show you," John deflected, hitching her arm a little more securely over his shoulder. "Come on."

He kept his eyes on the floor as they made their way into the bathroom, and it didn't take Sarah long to figure out why.

She was moving even before she fully registered the pathetic sight of a soaking wet Cameron, shaking and almost blue under the freezing water. Steadying herself on the back of the toilet, she reached in and twisted the faucet off.

"Get me a towel!" she ordered John curtly, wrapping a hand around Cameron's wrist and tugging gently. Cameron didn't show any sign of recognizing either of them, but she allowed Sarah to pull her out of the tub, stepping awkwardly over the lip, tripping and almost falling, she was trembling so hard.

Sarah caught the suddenly ungainly girl as Cameron pitched forward. Unprepared for the sheer weight, she stumbled back against the counter, biting her lip against the hot flash of pain from her leg. Getting them both steadied took longer than it should have. Cameron seemed to resist being set back onto her own feet, leaning into Sarah far past when she should have needed the support.

Sarah's hands slid over Cameron's chilled and slippery skin, bracing against her shoulders and pushing until the girl was finally standing on her own. She could feel Cameron shake under her fingers, feel her artificial skin warm where they touched.

"Here…" Eyes averted, John held a towel out from the doorway, and Sarah took it gratefully, draping the soft cloth around Cameron's shoulders and rubbing hard. She barely noticed when John escaped back out into the main room, leaving them alone.

"Damnit, Girlie," Sarah berated as she dried. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Cameron blinked, unmoving under Sarah's ministrations; save for the shivers that still wracked her from head to toe. "Ultimate killing machine, and you can't handle a simple shower!" The heat in her voice surprised even Sarah. She wasn't sure if she was furious with herself or Cameron, but the girl was frightening her, and for Sarah, fear so often equalled anger. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

"I'm cold…" Cameron's voice was a wounded whisper, strained, choked, and completely devoid of its usual polished tones. She sounded… _human_.

Sarah looked up, and her heart almost stopped as a pair of tears slipped from glistening brown eyes and ran down Cameron's cheeks. Then the terminator actually _sniffled_, and there was nothing mechanical about the tiny, vulnerable sound, or the way her shoulders hunched under Sarah's fierce stare and rough hands.

Suddenly feeling a little like she was holding a live, and possibly poisonous, snake, Sarah froze. "John…?"

"What?" John must have heard the barely contained panic in her voice, because he reappeared almost instantly, apparently forgetting in his haste why he'd left in the first place. "I… uh…" Eyes wide, it only took him a second or two to remember and spin around, but that was apparently long enough for Cameron.

Squealing like… well, like an emotionally fragile teenage girl who's just had a boy walk in on her naked in the bathroom, Cameron pulled the towel around herself and buried her face in Sarah's shoulder, yanking them both around so that Sarah was between her and the door.

"Damnit. _Cameron_…" Sarah almost lost her footing, and she had to clutch at the front of her robe to prevent Cameron's frantic grip from threatening her own modesty.

"I'm sorr-" John choked from the doorway, cutting himself off as his brain caught up with his eyes. "Wait…" he looked back over his shoulder while trying not to look anywhere at all. "Is she _crying?"_

"Apparently,"Sarah snapped, struggling to wrap her head around the situation and failing miserably.

"What did you do to her?"

"What did _I_ do?" As scathing as it was possible to be in a bathrobe with a hysterical terminator trying to use her as a human shield, Sarah jerked her thumb at the door. "Get out of here before she remembers what _she_ can do to _you_."

"You called me in!" Indignance was a seventeen year old boy.

"And now I'm telling you to leave!"

"Fine," John grumped and retreated, the squelching of wet socks in cold water spoiling his exit.

Cameron lifted her head long enough to make sure he was gone before tucking it back against Sarah's collarbone. Even then, the grip of her hands on the front of Sarah's robe stayed firm, and her shoulders still shook with cold and the silent tears running down her face.

"Shhh…" Utterly confused and stunned beyond the ability to even begin sorting any of this out, Sarah focused on the immediate, getting Cameron calmed down. "Easy_,_ girlie," she soothed, running a hand over the girl's wet hair. "It's okay."

Cameron didn't answer, but a shudder ran through her and Sarah was able to ease back enough to shift slightly, reaching up to the shelf over the sink to pull down another robe. Slipping the towel off of Cameron's shoulders, her hand brushed a ragged tear in the girl's back.

Cameron arched sharply at the contact, crying out against Sarah's neck and almost stepping on Sarah's toes as she tried to get closer. Startled, Sarah yanked her hand away. There was a smear of blood across her palm.

"Shit." As gently as possible, she turned Cameron in her arms so that she could see her back. Three bullet holes and a scattering of shrapnel wounds marred the otherwise perfect skin, the area around them red and inflamed in a way Sarah had never seen on the terminator before. It looked like her body was trying to react to injury the way a human's would. If so, then as an infiltration effort it was spoiled by the shine of silver metal glaring up through torn flesh.

"Don't…please…" The quiet plea stopped Sarah's hand midway to the worst of the wounds.

"They _hurt_?" Sarah dropped her hand, pulling back a little so that she could see Cameron's face. Confusion lay heavily in those big brown eyes, confusion, pain and a certain dazed fear.

"Yes… no… Shouldn't it hurt? I think… I don't _know_!" The last word was almost a wail, and Sarah swallowed her half-formed insistence that the wounds needed to be stitched and dressed. The shower had already cleaned them out, and whatever was misfiring in Cameron's head, her skin would probably heal just as well left alone as it would with antibiotic cream and a bandage.

"Okay," she murmured, easing the robe over Cameron's shoulders with special care for her torn and sensitive back. "Okay."

Getting Cameron's arms into the sleeves was a little more of a trial, and it involved loosening first one hand from the front of Sarah's robe, putting it through, letting it reattach, and then doing the other. It was a little like dressing a very tall, very clingy child, except where it wasn't like that at all. No child had these kinds of curves.

Finally Sarah was able to knot the tie around Cameron's waist and the added layer of fabric did wonders for her tension levels. She'd spent the last forty-eight hours trying very hard to forget about the millisecond in which Cameron had been pressed up against her on the porch, hands sliding over her ribs and back, mouth almost brushing the curve of her throat… Okay, so it had been more than a millisecond, but it was specifically the millisecond in which she had not only not _objected_ to what was going on, but almost _welcomed_ it, that was bothering her.

A soft rap on the door gave her the little extra push she needed to shove that memory back out of sight, and Sarah dropped her hands from Cameron's tie.

"John?"

"Yeah… I thought you should know, the troops are starting to get restless, and I think Lauren's going to barge in here to make sure you two are okay herself in about five minutes." He paused. "_Are_ you okay?"

"Great," Sarah sighed. That was exactly what she needed. "You might as well come in," she allowed grudgingly. "We're decent."

John eased in through the door, his eyes wide with worry, but not the same stunned turmoil that was currently wiping out Sarah's ability to think beyond the immediate moment. She smelled a rat.

"John…" she began warningly. "If something like this had happened before, you would tell me right?"

"Um…" Suddenly the floor between his feet became very interesting.

"Damnit, John!" Sarah snapped.

"It wore off," he protested lamely, still not meeting her eyes. "I didn't say anything because I didn't –"

"Want me to worry, I know, I get the idea," Sarah interrupted him. "When?"

"The day you took Kacey to the hospital." John supplied immediately, as if candidness now might make up for earlier transgressions. "She spaced out at the grocery store, and ended up in some halfway house. She thought she was human or something…"

"Or _something_?" Sarah asked incredulously, her voice hitching. "Does this _something_ have a time limit?"

"Like I said, it wore off before," he hedged.

"Fine." Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, trying to wall out the panic, and the, not altogether as unpleasant as it should have been, sensation of having Cameron tucked up against her, hands twined so trustingly in the front of her robe.

"Take everyone else out of here," she snapped out after a beat. "Tell them I'm tired, I want to be left alone, and I said to go out for something to eat. I'll handle this."

John looked doubtful. "Are you _sure_…?" he hesitated in the doorway, his expression conflicted.

"We'll be fine," Sarah assured him with her best exasperated mom voice. "Go."

He went.

Sarah waited until she heard the door slam, and the truck rev, and then she eased away from the counter. Her leg was throbbing, and it protested against supporting even Sarah's weight, let alone a good portion of Cameron's, but it held long enough for Sarah to get them moving. After a few steps Cameron seemed to realize she was making Sarah stagger, and she straightened a little, taking some of the strain off.

"Come on, girlie," Sarah muttered. "I need to sit down, and you… I don't know _what_ you need, but standing around isn't going to get you any closer to it."

The nearest available surface was the double bed, and Sarah got them there somehow, then got Cameron onto it, and climbed up after her. She sighed in relief as her leg cleared the floor and she could lean back into the surplus of pillows piled against the headboard.

Cameron, never actually completely detached through all of this manoeuvring, hesitated awkwardly, looking down at her hands. "I…" she started. "I don't know who…"

"Hey," Sarah reached out and tipped Cameron's chin up. "You're safe, that's all that matters right now. We'll figure out the rest as we get to it."

"Can I…?" Cameron shifted closer, fingers tangling deeper into the soft white nap over Sarah's chest.

"Come here," Sarah whispered, gathering Cameron up against her side, and resisting the urge to jerk away as the girl's cheek came to rest over her collarbones, and a long arm stretched out over her ribs. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of Cameron's chest, and the beating of what passed for her heart, a rhythm that gradually evened out and slowed. Then the terminator, near as Sarah could tell and defying her own often repeated line, fell asleep.

*****

Cameron dreamed.

Like a movie on playback, her chip ground over the last few hours of her existence, analyzing and cataloguing, trying to understand what had happened. It may not have been what a human would call dreaming, but for Cameron, it was close enough.

She was back in the house, curled protectively around the water bottle and blanket that the other terminator needed to believe was a child, and bullets were slamming into her back. They tore holes in her skin, sending near-instant warnings of damage that simulated the human pain response until Cameron shut it down.

Time to move.

Cameron didn't like this part of the plan, but she fled, leaving Sarah alone, behind and beneath her, relying on the explosion to dump the terminator into the charged water where he would be helpless.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor behind her, and then the charges went, picking the house up and shaking it on its foundations. Cameron staggered, sliding sideways into a wall, and almost falling. The floorboards bucked and heaved under her feet, and it was a precious few seconds before she found her balance and spun back into the shredded living room.

The first gunshot came before she cleared the doorway. In the fraction of time before the second, Cameron had analyzed the situation, run several projections for the likeliest results, and made her decision. Then she froze.

Like a fickle god, the programming that had defined her, and that she was slowly learning to manipulate, chose this moment to rise up and cast her down. She was not permitted to risk her existence to save Sarah Connor.

The plan had failed. The odds of Sarah's survival were below acceptable levels; and Cameron's mission priority was now to return to John Connor and ensure his safety.

No.

Almost frantic, Cameron sought out and disabled the fragile line of code that bound her to John. Possible consequences were considered, and then discarded. She shrugged off the Resistance's shackles, her will shining clearly for a moment until Skynet's directives came crashing down on her instead.

Terminate John Connor.

Cameron actually took a step away from the yawning pit, her emerging consciousness almost flattened by the order that left no room for rescue. Skynet didn't care if Sarah Connor died.

Who would?

The squeal of tearing wood, another shot and a strangled cry, jerked Cameron back to a standstill, shaking as she fought to find some avenue of programming within herself that would allow her to do what she wanted to do.

Who would care if Sarah died?

A human would.

Human's valued human life.

A corrupted memory, like looking in a filthy, tear-stained mirror, of a girl who had stood up to a machine, in order to save her human allies, met Cameron's searching.

Allison would care if Sarah died. Allison would try to save her.

So Cameron would become Allison.

The code was damaged and red lights flashed dire warnings, but Cameron ignored them all, pulling the proto-program loose from its security measures, patching it, and forcing it to run. Skynet had wanted a machine that could emulate humanity perfectly, so it had built one that was good enough to fool itself.

Pain fired along circuits that thought they were nerves, processing speed slowed to a crawl, memories scattered, and all automated visual and auditory feedback flickered and died.

Allison stood at the edge of a hole in the floor, and looked down at the gun in her hand. What was she doing with a gun?

There was something she needed to do…

Across from her, clinging to the edge of splintered boards, a machine raised his weapon and pointed it at a woman crouched on a small table at the bottom of the hole. The woman was trapped, injured. A foreign surge of emotion caught in Allison's throat, this was what she needed to do. She had to save this woman. Nothing else mattered.

But how? She could shoot the terminator, but then he might shoot the woman, and this was not one of the weapons she was used to. It didn't look like it could take out a machine.

_Jump…_The idea wasn't hers, much as she didn't know the woman she needed to save, and yet somehow… she did. _Jump…_

There wasn't time to come up with a better plan. Allison submitted to the urging of that silent voice and leapt off of the edge, hitting the terminator, the impact snapping the floorboards he clung to and sending them both into the water.

First there was pain and fear, and then for a long time there was nothing but blackness.

Consciousness flickered in and out. Sensation returned just long enough for Allison to register that she was lying on her side, half-submerged in cold water, and someone was slumped on top of her, then nothingness again. Hands under her arms, the smell of gasoline and used paper coffee cups. The roughness of a worn material against her cheek. Voices arguing.

Vision, her eyes snapped open on the interior of a truck. She didn't know where she was, or what she was doing there. Gross motor control returned; she sat up and stared out through the windshield at a burning house. Had she set it on fire? No… Allison was not sure of much, but she knew that she had not wanted the house to burn.

She looked away.

A woman, a man, a car ride, a motel. Allison followed along because she didn't know what else to do. They seemed to know her, the woman called her Cameron, but there was worry in her eyes, and that name seemed to be Allison's too, somehow… maybe it was a nickname. Were they friends?

A shower in front of her, she was naked without remembering taking off her clothes. The water was running so she stepped in.

Cold, shouting, the woman, Sarah. Sarah was angry. Sarah was angry with _her_.

Another face, a boy, John. Her brother? What was he _doing_ in here?

Sarah would make it better. Sarah, her friend, her… what?

Allison, no, _Cameron, _pressed closer. Here was safety, here was salvation. She needed to be close to Sarah, needed to be touching her. Nothing else was important.

The boy left, came back, and left again.

Sarah was taking her somewhere, a bed. Cameron was so confused, so tired. Sarah pulled her close again, and that alone, finally, made sense enough that she could rest.

*****

Barely clinging to both consciousness and sanity, Sarah watched over Cameron as the terminator slept. She refused to think. If she thought at all, she would have to think about what had just happened, what was happening now, and what might happen when Cameron woke up, or when the others got back and she could no longer hide Cameron's deteriorating faculties. It was much easier not to think, at least for now.

Later would be soon enough to ask herself why she was here, curled up in a motel bed with a malfunctioning machine tucked up warm and close against her side. And why that wasn't bothering her nearly as much as it should have been.

Not that Sarah was exactly thrilled about the situation, but she should have been planning the best way to get the chip out of Cameron's head without waking her, or at least grabbing John and getting them both as far away as possible, and she wasn't doing either of those things. She wasn't even _tempted_ to do either of those things, and that thought was more frightening than all of the others put together.

It would have been so very, very easy to blame it on guilt, and she wouldn't even have been lying, exactly… Cameron had risked herself to save Sarah's life, and it was entirely Sarah's own fault that she had needed saving. If she had waited even another _second_ before pressing the button on the detonator, then the other terminator would have fallen straight into the charged water, and neither Sarah nor Cameron would have gotten seriously hurt. Instead, tense because she couldn't see what was going on, and distracted by her unexpected fear for Cameron's safety, she had blown the charges too soon. Now they were both paying the price for that mistake, and while Sarah's share was only a flesh wound, Cameron's might very well be her mind, and if she proved dangerous, her life.

But, deserved as the guilt might be, it was only half of the reason she was still here, still protecting Cameron. Guilt she could handle. It was the other half that was making Sarah's stomach churn and her head pound.

Cameron stirred slightly against her, and Sarah moved to sooth her automatically, bringing her hand up to brush the drying hair away from the girl's face. She didn't mean to, but somehow her fingers lingered on their way through those wavy stands, and then returned to trace the sharp curve of Cameron's cheekbone.

Brown eyes blinked open at her touch, tracking first to the fingers stilled against her skin, and then up to Sarah, a question looming unspoken.

Sarah swallowed hard. She couldn't tell which version of Cameron she was looking at, but there was definitely something other than a machine in that silent appeal.

"Cameron…?" she tested.

Dark eyes turned opaque for a moment as Cameron seemed to consider the implied question. She blinked again, and then nodded fractionally without pulling away. "I'm okay."

Sarah let out a heavy breath of relief, inhaling the clean scent of freshly washed hair and motel air fresheners. She dropped her hand and started to sit up but Cameron's arm over her waist tightened, holding her down.

"Let go, Cameron…" Sarah warned carefully, pushing gently but firmly against the offending limb.

"You're injured," Cameron protested, ignoring Sarah's struggles.

"It's just a graze," Sarah insisted. "Nothing to worry about."

"I worry," Cameron said softly.

Defeated by the tensile strength of Coltan alloy, and Cameron's own stubborn will, Sarah gave in and fell back against the pillows. If the girl didn't want to let her up until she'd had a chance to inspect the injury, then Sarah was in no shape to argue with her.

Relaxing her hold, Cameron ran her hand down over Sarah's hip to her thigh. Slipping long fingers under the edge of Sarah's robe, she folded it back and gently traced the dressing over the wound. She hesitated briefly on the oval of crusted blood that had seeped through the gauze before moving on, seemingly determined to map every inch of Sarah's bruised and mottled thigh.

Pressing her lips together Sarah set her eyes on the ceiling and submitted to the machines gentle, but thorough examination. Irritation could have explained the slight increase in her heart rate, but probably not the eager quivering of nerve endings under the girl's searching fingertips. It didn't help that when Cameron's hand finally stilled on her hip, it was well above the bandage, and nothing separated the warm press of her palm and fingers from Sarah's skin.

Off-white stucco and un-swept cobwebs utterly _failed_ as a distraction.

Gritting her teeth, Sarah faced the fact that ignoring Cameron was not likely to get the girl's hand off of her leg any sooner, and looked back down to find Cameron staring unapologetically up at her. If the ceiling had failed to take Sarah's mind off of the signals her body was sending her, at least it hadn't made the situation worse. The way Cameron was looking at her made it worse.

Even as she opened her mouth to suggest they get out of bed… _now_, Sarah felt Cameron's thumb sweep delicately over her hipbone and the words died in a suddenly dry mouth.

"Cameron… what-" Sarah heart stopped messing around and kicked into overtime. She tried to pull away, but the hand on her hip held her firmly down against the mattress.

Cameron tilted her head, and laid her other hand against the skin over Sarah's heart, pressing between the angled sides of her robe. "You're heart-rate has increased." She observed, a completely foreign breathiness invading her usual neutral tones. Dark brows pushed down and together. "So has mine," she continued, faintly puzzled. "I feel… _warm_."

Yeah… warm about covered it. Cameron's hands were burning twin brands into her skin, and Sarah tried rather desperately to ascribe the pounding of her heart and the shivering of her nerves to panic. A panic that increased dramatically when Cameron shifted closer, sliding her hand up under Sarah's robe from hip to waist, and slipping a lean thigh over her uninjured leg.

"Whoa, girlie," Sarah gasped, raising her hands to push against the machine's shoulders and twitching away from searching fingertips and pressing limbs. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

Cameron stroked her hand softly down Sarah's bare side, the touch wringing loose another shiver and urging Sarah closer, but Sarah held firm, arms shaking against the weight and pressure of a determined terminator. A pressure that paused, and then held back at Sarah's words. She felt an answering tremor run through machine.

"I don't know," Cameron whispered, looking and sounding almost as confused as Sarah felt. The terminator's superfluous breath was coming sharp and fast, and the rich brown of her eyes had been almost completely swallowed up by the black of dilated pupils. Under her hands Sarah could feel a rapid pulse beating.

"I want…" Cameron swallowed hard. "What's happening to me?" she asked breathlessly, eyes searching Sarah's face for clues. "What is this?"

The answer was on the tip of Sarah's tongue, but she bit it back. Giving this thing between them a name would make it real, and her reality was already complicated enough. Unwilling to lie, and unable to face the possibility that this was anything other than Cameron's latest malfunction, Sarah just shook her head, eyes fixed on her fingers clutching at the fuzzy fabric over Cameron's shoulders.

"Sarah," Cameron lifted her hand from Sarah's chest to her jaw, pushing back shaggy brown hair, and tipping her chin up.

Sarah was well past the age where she believed she could disappear by closing her eyes, but that didn't stop her from trying.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't work.

Her eyes flew open again at the first awkward brush of Cameron's lips against her own, and she tried to twist free, but Cameron held her fast, and the machine was already shifting higher against her, pressing Sarah back and down into the pillows, deft fingers loosening the tie on her robe.

The blood _pounded_ between Sarah's ears. Fear peaked and then strangely fell away, abandoning her to an instant of total calm before a wave of what she could no longer deny was desire crashed into the void. On the crest of that high, Sarah stopped fighting. She let the terminator push back the edges of her robe, and started fumbling at Cameron's tie herself as Cameron tilted her head and deepened the kiss, adrenalin and two years of abstinence making up for the machine's inexperience.

Then Cameron froze.

One second, two, Sarah took a breath, sanity threatening, and then Cameron was off the bed and across the room so fast that the mattress _heaved_ at her absence, shaking Sarah until she had to clutch at the covers and hiss as the sudden movement jostled her leg.

"That should not have happened." Cameron's clipped tone, so like her old terminator voice, snapped Sarah back to reality even before the words were out of her mouth.

Instantly and completely mortified, Sarah felt her cheeks burn as she sat up, pulling the sides of her open robe closed and knotting the tie back around her waist. "You're telling _me?" _she snapped, shaking. "What _was_ that?"

Cameron opened her mouth to answer but Sarah cut her off, fury rapidly replacing embarrassment. Fury was cleaner, more familiar. "No," she growled. "I don't even want to _hear_ it right now… just get _out_."

Cameron hesitated, indecision clear on her features for a moment before her face hardened. Without a word, she turned on her heel and left the room.

Alone, Sarah collapsed back on the bed. Trembling like an addict denied a fix; she curled up on her side, clenched her eyes shut and waited for oblivion.


	11. Chapter 11

Night descended on the nearly vacant motel parking lot. The neon sign of a twenty-four hour Dairy Queen flickered and hummed to life across the street. Nearer, the fluorescent glare of dirty, bug-speckled lamps hung in a sullen line over an equally disreputable row of doors. Doors that might have been white before time, weather and a certain professional indifference had worn them down to a cadaverously mottled grey, their edges peeling back like dried skin, flaking and speckled with mold.

It was possible to see here and there where an attempt had been made to brighten things up. Potted plants, a fresh shine to the brass numbers on the doors and in the rooms themselves, new linens and the overly luxurious bathrobes, all of it as out of place in this setting as a high-priced escort in a den of hookers. Rather than improving their surroundings, these little touches served only to throw everything else into starker relief. The poor among the poor had dignity, it was only in the company of the rich that they became detestable.

Cameron stood alone outside of rooms five and six. If she cared about, or even noticed the general state of decay and disrepair around her, nothing in her utterly rigid stance betrayed that opinion. She would have guarded the rooms behind her no more vigilantly if they belonged to a grand palace, and not a motel more likely to rent them for an hour than a night. Two vehicles, a jeep and a battered truck, their engines still cooling in the oncoming chill of the night air, were her only company.

Behind the doors, female voices rose in argument, but Cameron was too preoccupied with the struggle going on inside of her own body and programming to listen. Even if she had tried to eavesdrop, she would have found it difficult. Her hearing was fading in and out like a radio station just out of range. As confused as the rest of her senses, it couldn't seem to decide whether to be human or machine.

Cameron sympathized. She might have remembered who and what she was, but the infiltration code that had three times now fooled her into believing she was a human girl named Allison was still active, and it was fighting her efforts to shut it down.

Under the influence of that code, Cameron's artificial limbic system had reacted to Sarah's touch like virgin tinder to a well placed spark, flaring into an unexpected wildfire. Even now, as if that short, but explosive, taste of freedom had given them a hunger for life, the parts of her that pretended to be nerves, hormones and emotions, refused to lie quiescent or return to their previously biddable state.

Just thinking about Sarah made Cameron's synthetic heart pound, and her pulse race. Flashes of heat and chills chased each other around her body, triggering sweats and shivers that should have been under her conscious direction. While Cameron could seek out and switch off one physical manifestation of the code at a time, as soon as she turned her attention to a second or third, the first one would wriggle out of her grip, and turn itself on again.

As a design intended to make a machine seem human, it was brilliant. As a rogue malfunction it was driving Cameron as close to crazy as a cybernetic organism could get.

She couldn't focus.

She couldn't _think_.

She tried to direct her attention to the mission, having rather guiltily reactivated her resistance codes, but thoughts of John inevitably led to thoughts of Sarah… and then she was lost again. It was the most frustrating experience she had ever encountered, and the most… stirring.

Cameron had touched Sarah before, even touched her deliberately, in the hospital, the Jeep, the house when she'd cleaned her wounds and bound her ribs, but the small, tame satisfaction she'd gotten from those stolen moments of contact barely registered in comparison to the storm she was under now. If this was what it was like to experience desire as a human, Cameron didn't wonder that their species was so plentiful. On the contrary, she found it curious that they had found time to build Skynet at all. Perhaps they had some kind of built in filtering device? They couldn't possibly be walking around feeling this way all the time. Maybe this was why they had invented clothing, as an attempt to reduce temptation.

Thinking about human fashion trends distracted Cameron for a moment, but it was only a matter of seconds before contemplation of clothing became contemplation of the _absence_ of clothing. Sensing an opportunity, her chip threw an image at her, captured in the instant that she had pulled away; Sarah, laying underneath her, the sides of her robe thrown back and her eyes dark with the same intensity that was torturing Cameron…

Cameron swallowed, her fingers curling into fists as she fought to stay still, stay outside, stay away from Sarah… Yes, this must be _exactly _why clothing had been invented.

Clever humans.

*****

"No." Head aching, Sarah put as much finality into that single syllable as she could dredge out of the maelstrom of confusion and self-loathing that was her current state of mind. Leaning on the back of an overstuffed, floral armchair for support, and dressed in the torn jeans and a faded t-shirt that had been the first clothing she'd pulled out of her bag when the idea of staying in that robe for another second had made her physically ill, she was well aware that she made a less than imposing figure. If it weren't for the scattered remains of her pride, she wouldn't be standing at all.

"You can't stop me." Lauren, her bag in one hand, Sydney's carrier in the other, seemed determined to test the very limits of Sarah's endurance. Little did she know how close Sarah was to throwing it all over for a bottle of scotch and a one-way ticket to anywhere that wasn't here.

"I don't have to," Sarah pointed out coldly. "There are two machines out there that will do it for me. You leave now, and you're putting your sister in their hands."

Lauren paled, but she refused to back down. "You don't know they're after her."

"I know one of them was," Sarah snapped. "That's enough for me, and it should be enough for you. You've seen what they can do, what they have done, but you still have no idea what you're dealing with."

Behind Lauren, John cleared his throat nervously. He and Riley had come from the other room to join Derek and Jesse as silent spectators when the raised voices had penetrated the thin motel walls, but until now, they hadn't interfered.

"Mom's right," he said cautiously. "We have no idea whether or not your sister was the only target, and we won't until I can finish examining that chip, maybe not even then. You're both safer here."

"Are we?" Lauren rounded on him. "Sarah almost died, Cameron got fried and they blew up a house! Now you want to find out what those other machines are up to so you can hunt _them_ down? Your life is the _opposite_ of safe."

"I'm still alive," John reminded her.

"You are," Lauren agreed bitterly, "and if it comes down to a choice between your life and my sister's or mine, we'll lose. _You're_ the future leader of mankind, not me, and not Sydney. This isn't our fight."

"Too bad," Sarah cut in before John could reply, yanking their attention back to her. "Do you think they care that you didn't sign up for this? That you're just a kid? That you're scared? Believe me, they don't. You can't run away from them. If they want Sydney dead, they will find you, and then they will kill you."

The blunt truth hurt, even on this end of it, but Sarah didn't have the time or patience to be gentle. Habit made her look past Lauren for Cameron, the silent support she had never asked for, and whose presence might have ended this argument before it began. But Cameron wasn't there. Sarah had banished her. Furious with herself for the lapse, Sarah cast the terminator out of her thoughts and fixed her eyes back on Lauren.

The girl was looking at the rug, her shoulders quivering under the strain of her bag and the little sister she hadn't asked for, but loved enough to die for. If Sarah had had so much as a scrap of sympathy left for herself, she would have offered it to Lauren, but any self-pity she'd once entertained was long gone. All that was left was a raw determination to win and it wasn't enough, it was never enough.

"Give it up kid," Derek put in from his place against the wall. "She might not be able to stop you, but I'm betting her metal girlfriend will, and that's trouble you don't need."

Sarah stiffened, but she refused to acknowledge the jab. Derek couldn't possibly know how close to the bone he'd cut, and she had no intention of enlightening him. She had almost hoped they were past this kind of undermining bullshit, but apparently forcing his hand back at the house had pissed him off more than she'd thought. Perfect.

The tension mounted, then without another word Lauren dropped her bag and knelt to un-strap Sydney from her carrier. Riley brushed past John to help, and Sarah left them to it. She walked past John and Derek and Jesse with no sign that she even saw them, retreating back into the other room and shutting the door behind her with a quiet click.

*****

John found Cameron outside. Her back to him, she gave no more sign of life than the crumbling posts to either side of her. Less. The posts at least communicated a rather desperate uneasiness as they struggled to hold up an overhang that looked ready to give up and fall apart at the slightest excuse. Cameron communicated nothing.

"Hey," he muttered, speaking half to the machine and half to the cracking pavement under his feet.

The pavement didn't answer him, and neither did Cameron.

John tried again. "So are you okay now? You were pretty out of it…"

"I'm okay." The two word answer was given grudgingly, any emotion or personality stripped from it like the embroidered initials picked off the edge of a handkerchief by a thief. It was both like, and unlike Cameron's usual neutral tone. The difference between something taken away, and something that hadn't been there in the first place.

More worried about his mother than Cameron right now, John almost missed the distinction. If it weren't for the way Cameron was holding herself, almost as if she was _trying_ to look like a machine, he might not have noticed it all. Something was less than okay here… and John couldn't help but think that if _he_ could see it, then something was _really_ not okay.

What that meant, John had no idea. Did his mother know? Were they both hiding something from him now, or had Cameron managed to convince his mother that she was fine? The latter seemed more likely, but taking his mother's mood into account, he couldn't rule out that there was more going on than either of them wanted to tell him. If Cameron were a person, he'd assume that they'd had a fight and Cameron had retreated to cool off… could a machine lose her temper? His mother certainly could, and he wouldn't put it past her to send Cameron outside so that _she_ could cool off.

All John knew was that Cameron was supposed to be supporting his mother, and she needed that support right now, more than she needed to be sitting alone and sulking over whatever it was that had happened while he'd been gone. Maybe Cameron needed to be reminded of that.

"Mom and Lauren had a fight," he offered into the silence, hoping to clue her in.

"I know." Cameron's tone still gave nothing away, other than that there was something to give away, something she was deliberately withholding, but a slight hitch to her shoulder and a fraction of a glance in his direction betrayed her tension.

"You heard?"

"I heard." Cameron paused, "I don't know what it was about," she allowed stiffly, as if the mere admission of curiosity was out of place for a machine.

John looked back at the motel wall, skeptical that plywood, drywall and plaster were any kind of a barrier to a terminator's audio sensors, but he wasn't going to call her on it now that she was talking to him, albeit grudgingly. "Lauren wanted to take Sydney and leave," he explained. "Mom said no."

"It's not safe," was the utterly predictable response.

"They're not really safe with us either," he countered.

"Sarah makes the decisions," Cameron said with an air of finality, but was that a trace of bitterness and hurt that had escaped along with it? John was torn between a petty satisfaction at being right, and uneasiness over Cameron expressing emotion at all… let alone expressing it in a way he could read.

"Yeah, she's been doing a lot of that lately," he fished, and the tightening around Cameron's mouth further confirmed his suspicions. There was definitely something going on between them, something that was hurting his mother.

"So what did you do?" John asked bluntly. "You're standing out here like a puppy that's been banished to the porch for eating someone's seven hundred dollar boots, and Mom's a wreck, but she's not saying anything..."

"I am not a puppy," Cameron deadpanned, but it wasn't a joke. She meant it, and John didn't think he was imagining the small glint of anger in the corner of her eye. So he was right about the sending away thing, and Cameron wasn't happy about it.

He shrugged. "So go back inside."

"I-" Cameron stopped, composed herself, which for her was the difference between something that could _almost_ be interpreted as an expression, and no expression at all. "Sarah doesn't want to see me right now."

John snorted. "Derek and Jesse are inside. Trust me, she doesn't want to see _anyone_ right now. That doesn't mean she should always get what she wants." He eyed the machine sideways. "You're sturdy… she probably can't kill you."

The attempt at humor earned him a look that fully acknowledged his presence for the first time while simultaneously dismissing his opinion. "It's not a good idea," she insisted.

"So you're just going to stand out here all night?" John demanded, sighing when Cameron simply looked away. "Fine," he surrendered, heading back inside. "But sooner or later you need to start making your own decisions. Being 'Sarah Connor' doesn't mean she's always right."

Cameron didn't turn or say anything when he left, but looking back over his shoulder before he closed the door, John could see that it wasn't only the posts that were struggling.

*****

If not for the loaded 9mm in the front pocket, Cameron's backpack could have belonged to any seventeen-year-old girl. Sitting on the edge of the bed with the bag open-mouthed in front of her, Sarah pulled out yet another bottle of nail polish and pushed aside a stack of thin strapped tank-tops, but nothing met her searching fingers except more clothing.

The connecting door opened behind her.

"That's my bag." Cameron could have been a life-sized doll with a pull string for all of the inflection in those three words.

Sarah covered her surprise with a jerky shrug, refusing to turn around. "I know," she answered shortly.

"What are you looking for?"

Sarah yanked harder than was necessary on a pair of jeans, cursing when they came free in a flurry of what _had _been neatly folded underwear. _Why_ a terminator needed a hot pink thong was not a question she needed to be asking herself right now. Pretty much any questions involving Cameron and underwear were on the "not now, and hopefully never" list, but that didn't stop her thwarted libido from offering several possible answers anyway, answers that threw her into even greater confusion.

Sarah counted to ten, slowly. "I'm looking for my pills," she answered finally, when she was fairly certain that she could get the words out without snarling. "I need to sleep."

Cameron didn't reply, but she padded softly across the room and leaned past Sarah to reach into the front pocket of her bag. Sarah gritted her teeth when Cameron's leg brushed her knee. At least the girl had gotten dressed.

Sarah stared resolutely past Cameron to the wall. Her fingers itched to trace the inch of skin that had been bared between the bottom of the girl's shirt and her jeans, but even while the temptation seared through her veins, Sarah denied it, blaming it on shock, guilt, temporary insanity, anything but the desire to touch a machine.

"Here." Cameron pulled back with the bottle of sleeping pills in her hand. She passed them to Sarah and without another word, headed for the door.

Sarah stared down at the little bottle, the printed prescription label a reminder that she'd wrecked her cell phone and blown up her house phone. The doctor would have no way to contact her about the results of her blood tests… she would have to call him. Thoughts of the hospital, the doctor, and a little white pill left on her bedside table every night, twisted inside of her.

"Cameron…" The terminator paused, looked over her shoulder. "I…" Sarah rubbed at her aching eyes and tried again. "Thanks." She half-raised the bottle, and Cameron nodded.

The terminator moved to go, then stopped again. She looked back at her clothing and personal items strewn across the bed and then up at Sarah. "You could have asked," she stated plainly, and it may have been the mildest rebuke Sarah had ever received, but somehow those soft words cut.

Shame made her snap. "Right, like _you_ asked before you-" she stopped, looking away and biting her tongue before she gave voice to the intimacy Cameron had forced on her only hours before. The intimacy Cameron had forced her to admit to _wanting_…

Cameron turned to face her fully and there was no mistaking the anger in her eyes and the stiff tilt to her chin, or the slight trembling in her fingers. "I didn't mean to, I-" She shut her mouth abruptly as the door between the rooms opened and John stepped through, looking concerned and a little wary. He closed the door behind him.

"Are you two okay now?" He addressed Cameron first, ignoring both the crackling tension and the disgorged contents of Cameron's backpack on the bed.

Sarah quickly tucked the hand holding the bottle of pills behind her back. "We're fine," she interjected before Cameron could offer her own, possibly more truthful, answer.

John nodded, some of the stiffness leaving his shoulders. "Good, because Lauren and Riley are sleeping in the other room and that means the three of us are in here.

_I don't need this_… Sarah felt the aching of her head suddenly intensify at the thought of spending an entire night shut up in the same room as Cameron. "That's fine," she lied. Cameron shifted, but Sarah didn't take her eyes of John.

"Um…" John looked back and for the between them, comprehension slowly dawning as he realized he'd walked in on an unfinished conversation. "Well…" He trailed off. "Okay… I'll go get my stuff then."

"Do that." Sarah tried to dredge up a reassuring smile, failing miserably. John didn't seem to notice. He was probably used to the absence of reassurance by now. When the door shut behind him, Sarah quickly shook a pill out of the bottle and swallowed it. Then she tossed the bottle back into Cameron's bag. It could stay there for now, fewer questions that way. She still couldn't quite bring herself to look at Cameron, but she didn't need to look to feel the machine's stare burning into her skin.

"We're not fine."

Sarah sighed. "I know." She pushed herself shakily to her feet, pathetically grateful when Cameron didn't offer to help. She didn't think her sorry excuse for sanity would survive skin to skin contact right now. Hell, even eye contact was pushing it. She could sense Cameron _wanting_ to help, but evidently the machine's self control was better than she'd thought, because Cameron stayed where she was.

Sarah limped the few steps to her own bag on the floor and dug out a toothbrush. No way was she getting undressed. Sleeping in jeans wouldn't kill her for one night.

The walk to the bathroom was pushing it; Sarah gritted her teeth and did it anyway. She could already feel fresh blood seeping out from around the stitches in her leg, but she was used to pain, and at least this was clean pain.

Sarah paused at the bathroom door, her eyes firmly on the fake wood paneling. There was one question she had left to ask. "Whatever went wrong with you today, does it make you a danger to John?"

Sarah heard Cameron's feet shift on the carpet and she tensed, but the machine didn't come any closer. "No," she answered finally.

"Then we're fine enough." Sarah started to turn the knob, but Cameron's near whisper held her back.

"Sarah…"

"No," Sarah cut her off. "This never happened, and it will never happen again. You need to stay away from me."

"Yes," Cameron agreed immediately. "That would be best."

"Good."

Later, sinking into a medicated sleep despite John's snoring from the other bed, and the weight of Cameron's silent vigil at the window, Sarah told herself she was relieved, not disappointed by Cameron's lack of protest… she _couldn't_ be disappointed, could she?

*****

"Mom!" John's urgent demand, and a rough hand on her shoulder, dragged Sarah up and out of oblivion, although not fast enough to avoid more shaking. "_Mom_, wake up!"

"Urhg…" Sarah groaned, cracking her eyes open to the sickly light of the motel room. The lamps were on, and only the palest of gleams came through the blinds, so it wasn't late. What did they want from her _now_? "I'm awake," she added when the hands threatened again.

The hands retreated, John's hands she realized when she rolled over and opened her eyes fully. He was sitting on the edge of the bed in the same shirt and sweatpants he'd slept in, his hair not yet brushed, and an expression of such desperate worry on his face that the last of the cobwebs fled.

"John." Sarah freed herself from the tangle of blankets, sitting up and gripping his shoulder. "What happened?"

"Lauren's gone," he explained, wide eyed. "Riley too." He swallowed. "I think Cameron went with them. Derek and Jesse didn't hear anything, but the woman at the front desk says there was a call out to a taxi company a few hours ago."

Cameron was gone. Sarah closed her eyes as the full impact hit her. John didn't give her time to absorb it.

"Mom…?"

"I need a minute here, John." Sarah focused on breathing as she tried to get her brain to catch up. Cameron _couldn't_ have left them… she had promised to keep John safe, hadn't she? Or had she only promised not to kill him? What the hell did that idiot girl Lauren think she was doing?

"Mom_…"_

"John, please!" Sarah opened her eyes and instantly regretted snapping. John wouldn't be pushing her if he didn't think he had to. "What else?" she asked more softly.

"It's been on the news all morning…" That was all he managed before Sarah pushed past him, out of bed, hissing when her leg took the strain of standing. She hobbled to the television and turned it on, panic clawing at her throat as the picture swam into focus and the newscaster's voice, a syrupy sweet drawl, came over the speakers.

"…_early this morning, a man was found shot to death in his own bed. The Police have identified the body, and we've been told that the victim's name was Charles Dixon. No motive has yet been found…" _

Sarah staggered back, swayed, and would have fallen if not for John's arm around her waist. He helped her back to the bed, leaving only to get a cup of water that she drank gratefully while he knelt in front of her, hands on her knees.

"It's not him, it's not Charley," he kept repeating, over and over, until Sarah was able to nod.

"I know," she said weakly. "I hid him, but it doesn't matter, we know who the next target is."

"And it's not Sydney," John agreed. "Which I'm guessing is why Lauren left."

_And Cameron? _Sarah didn't voice the question aloud. She didn't know why it mattered so much to believe that Cameron hadn't known what she was leaving Sarah to face, but Sarah clung to that belief as if it were her last link to sanity.

Banishing the thought, she pulled John up and into a rough embrace. "We'll save him," she whispered into his hair, wishing it were as easy to reassure herself. She needed more than words, she needed Cameron, and Cameron was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

A bus stop. Human traffic flowing in and out, children crying, people shouting, calling, laughing, hugging, and above it all, the announcement that bus number seventeen was delayed. Again. Cameron glanced up at the electronic schedule just in time to see the departure time of Lauren and Riley's bus switch from nine fifteen, to _"Please Standby__.__"_ A chorus of complaints and cursing rose around them, and Cameron returned her attention to the waiting crowd, alert for any threat. This was not a safe place.

There were too many people, too many windows, and too many exits. Of the four walls, only two of them were solid enough to guard their backs, and one of those was taken up by the ticket counters and bathrooms. Cameron had chosen seats against the other for the girls, and put herself between them and the rest of the room.

It wouldn't be enough if a machine wanted them dead. Cameron calculated that in the case of an attack, she would be able to save one, maybe two, but not all three of them. Lauren and Sydney would be the logical choice, but the chances of getting away with Riley were much better. She wasn't a direct target.

While they waited, Cameron formulated and ran several different simulated escape plans. She wanted to be ready, and the monotonous task distracted her from worrying about the continuingly unpredictable and unnerving fluctuations in her senses.

Cameron had spent the entire night trying to isolate and neutralize the Allison program, but without success. The code, like the rest of her programming, had been designed to infiltrate, and that's exactly what it was doing, separating and burrowing deeper every minute. Cameron could chase the scattered pieces, but there were places inside of herself that she couldn't go, blank walls and dead ends. Without warning the code would disappear, only to show up as a sudden and almost incomprehensible craving for pastry when they walked past a coffee cart, or a sharp pain that ignored her override instructions when a man in a suit stepped on her foot.

"You should come with us," Riley suggested into the silence for the seventh time, clutching her diet-coke so hard that the plastic sides bowed under her fingers.

Cameron ignored her. She had answered in the negative the first four times, and that had only prolonged the conversation. Cameron didn't want to argue with Riley, she didn't want to talk at all. She wanted to see them safely onto their bus and then get back to John and Sarah. She had already been away too long, and the need to be nearer to Sarah was almost a physical thing. Even now, when the most prominent emotion Cameron could label with regards to Sarah wasn't exactly a positive one, that need dragged on her like a rope around her neck, adding to the general confusion and disequilibrium.

"She's not coming with us, Riley," Lauren answered for her. "Let it go."

"But-"

"Let it _go_," Lauren repeated wearily, leaning back into the hard plastic seat as if there was some comfort to be found there and it was simply eluding her. "She said no five times already, and she's ignored you for the last two."

"Four," Cameron corrected her automatically. "I said no four times."

"You said it once back at the Motel too," Lauren pointed out. "That makes five."

"I said I would help," Cameron clarified.

"I can't believe you two are arguing at a time like this!" Hunched and wretched in her seat, Riley was becoming increasingly agitated the longer they waited. She was frightened, and almost sick with it. Deep down, Riley was always frightened. Fear was a constant state of being in the tunnels, it was how Riley and others like her survived, and she had brought that fear into the past with her. At first she had been afraid of Cameron, but familiarity and John and Lauren's influence had persuaded her that Cameron was someone to hide _behind_, not from. Without that focus, the fear had built up until it was almost unbearable.

Lauren sighed. "We're not arguing. We're making conversation to try and pass the time."

"Well, I think you should stop."

Even Lauren couldn't seem to find anything to say to that, so they lapsed into silence once more. Sydney had fallen asleep in her carrier an hour ago, despite the noise, and Lauren was idly rocking her back and forth on the next seat. Another five minutes passed like that. Cameron watching, Riley worrying, Sydney sleeping and Lauren rocking.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Riley announced abruptly, looking at each of them in turn expectantly.

"So go." Lauren's response held an edge of frustration. She was frightened too, and Riley's nerves were a millstone around her neck, steadily grinding down her own ability to cope. "No one is stopping you."

"I can't go by myself!"

"Are you three?" Lauren demanded. "It's twenty feet away."

"Cameron…" Riley's whine scraped painfully over Cameron's sensitive ears, triggering a surge of annoyance so far beyond anything she would have expected that Cameron was startled. Feeling her fingers twitch, she clamped down on the irritation and the immediate urge for violence it prompted. She had no specific directive to protect Riley, but the girl was not a threat, and Cameron did not kill just to kill. She _would_ not give in to that side of her nature.

"We will go with you," she agreed, both to avoid a potentially destabilizing argument, and because splitting up was an unnecessary risk.

In spite of Lauren's eye rolling, they made a troop movement to the bathroom, dragging the girl's bags and Sydney along with them. Cameron waited outside, and Lauren stayed with her.

"So why _are_ you helping us?" Lauren asked once Riley had shut the door behind her. "This can't be fun for you, and Sarah's not exactly going to be happy when she finds out about it."

That inevitability had occurred to Cameron. Surprisingly the idea didn't upset her, instead it made her feel vaguely…. _satisfied._

She knew that humans often made irrational decisions based on emotions like anger or hurt, but until now she hadn't fully understood how they could ignore logic and reason in favour of something as tenuous as a feeling. Until now, her feelings hadn't been strong enough. For the first time, Cameron felt she was beginning to understand some of what drove Sarah's own sometimes illogical and inefficient behaviour, and even in the midst of her rebellion, she sympathized.

"You put John at risk," Cameron said finally, settling for a piece of the truth, just not all of it. "You're a target. A smaller group is easier to hide. He will be safer with you gone."

"Yeah." Lauren leaned back against the wall, looking down past the heavy weight of Sydney's carrier in her hands to the dirty floor. "It's safer for John."

Cameron wasn't sure why such a simple statement of agreement should make her feel guilty, but it did. "It may also be safer for you," she added hesitantly, unused to considering the wellbeing of anyone other than John and Sarah, but finding it more natural than she had expected. She did not want to see Lauren hurt. "What we do is dangerous. People die."

"People like me."

"People like you," Cameron agreed.

"That kind of sucks," Lauren said with a half grin.

"Yes," Cameron said thoughtfully, considering Lauren's courage, her dedication to the protection of her sister, and the way Lauren had treated Cameron herself from the beginning, like a person, a friend. "It sucks."

Vaguely uncomfortable with that realization, and the flurry of conflicts it triggered, Cameron turned away from Lauren to scan the room again, her gaze lifting to the flat screen television hanging from the ceiling and broadcasting local news. The audio was muted, but highlights ran in a bar across the bottom of the screen. Cameron hadn't been able to see it from their previous seats, but she took advantage of it now, reading and processing the captions faster than they could appear.

She barely noticed the bathroom door swinging open behind her as a familiar name caught her complete attention.

"Hey, Cameron, what are you-" Riley broke of with a squeak when Cameron whirled around, a red film creeping into the edges of her vision. She fought it back, but there was no question that both girls had seen that brief flicker. They stared at her dumbly.

Cameron didn't have time to reassure them, she held out her hand, frustrated when Riley jumped back. "I need your phone. Now!"

*****

"Mom, wait. You can't do this by yourself!" John pleaded, following Sarah around the room as she packed a duffel bag with weapons and medical supplies, her injury almost forgotten. She would pay for it later, but for now she was riding high on adrenalin and a couple of Jesse's prescription painkillers.

"I don't have a choice." Sarah turned, found John blocking her path, and went around him to retrieve the gun from under her pillow and stuff it into the back of her jeans. She threw on a light leather jacket to cover it.

"Do you want us to hold our ground here?" Derek crossed into the room with a bottle in his hand that he tossed to Sarah. More pain pills. She added them to the bag and yanked the zipper closed.

"Please," she said, her civility matching his. A mission made them all more focused, less liable to chew on each other, and he hadn't commented on Cameron's apparent defection, or questioned Sarah's decision to go after Charley. Sarah appreciated both. "Keep an eye on John, and I'll call you as soon as I can."

"What about Cameron?" John cut into their exchange. "Her bag is still here, Mom. She's coming back. You don't have to do this alone."

Sarah and Derek exchanged silent glances. For once, he seemed to get it. "If she comes back we'll send her after you," he said for John's sake. Sarah nodded. She had pushed her own panic and hurt down below the mission and the pills. Like ignoring her leg, she would pay for it later, but right now Charley needed her. She couldn't be thinking about Cameron.

"I can't wait on a maybe John," Sarah added, hanging the bag over her shoulder. "Charley isn't answering his phone, I have to go now."

"She's coming back," John repeated, following Sarah outside. "Mom!" he shouted when she didn't stop. "She wouldn't leave you!"

Sarah halted, her hand flat on the Jeep's driver's side door. She focused on the hard, slick surface, trying desperately to hold onto her focus even as it cracked and crumbled through her fingers. John stood a few feet away, stiff with the self righteousness of youth. He couldn't possibly know how deeply his words cut. He was just projecting his own fears. He had to believe that Cameron wouldn't leave _him. _

But she had. She had left them both.

"John, don't-" Sarah started, only to be interrupted by the shrill demand of John's cell phone. He scrambled to pull it out of his pocket without taking his eyes off of Sarah. Traitorous hope rising in her chest, she waited through the somewhat strangled hello and the exchange of security codes.

"Cameron!" he exclaimed with a pointed look at Sarah. "Where have you- Sure, she's right here."

Sarah took the phone with shaking hands and a thudding heart. "Hey," she managed.

"I'm coming," was all Cameron said, and it was enough.

Sarah leaned hard against the Jeep, all of her bravado falling away in an instant. "Please hurry," she whispered.

*****

Cameron didn't make Sarah wait long. Within half an hour she was there, all three of the fugitives and a stolen car in hand. Sarah was happy to leave the interrogation and watchdog duties to Derek, settling instead for a hard look at each of the offending teenagers that further deflated their already wilted egos. She didn't know what Cameron had done or said to make them come back, and she didn't want to. It was enough that they were safe. Consequences could wait until Charley was safe, too.

They were on the road in a matter of minutes, Cameron only letting Sarah drive alone as far as the shopping mall a few miles out of town so that they could ditch the stolen car. After that there was only the Jeep, and Cameron drove. Sarah didn't really mind. Relief at Cameron's return was uncomfortably mingled with the tension that still stretched tautly between them, and Sarah was content to leave it alone, staring out the window and watching the world go by.

They hadn't spoken beyond what was necessary to fill Cameron in on the situation, and most of that had come from John. Hanging back, Sarah had found her eyes following the girl while she quickly put her own bag together. There was a strange new fluidity intermingled with Cameron's usual stiffness, the same almost-human combination of grace and carelessness that Sarah had noticed the night before. It wasn't as prominent, and every few seconds Cameron seemed to catch herself, forcing her joints back into their customary rigid lines, but it was there.

Sarah knew she shouldn't be staring, knew she needed to forget whatever it was Cameron had made her feel. She couldn't be attracted to a machine, it was insane. But something fundamental had changed between them, and there didn't seem to be a handy off switch.

The miles disappeared beneath their wheels while Sarah brooded. They stopped once so that Sarah could get something to eat and use the bathroom. Cameron didn't even ask, she just pulled into the fast food restaurant and took the keys out of the ignition. Her meaning was clear. They weren't going any further until Sarah ate. Sarah didn't argue. Cameron got a coke that she didn't touch, sitting patiently in the opposite seat until Sarah was finished. They didn't talk.

It was Sarah who finally broke the silence. Trying to climb back into the Jeep, she cursed when her leg gave way and she slipped, banging it against the edge of the door. Cameron was there in a second, steadying Sarah until the pain ebbed enough for her head to clear, and then helping her up into the seat with a gentle hand on her waist. Cameron's fingers were warm where they pressed against her skin and Sarah bit her lip against the heady mixture of pain and pleasure.

"Thanks," she said when Cameron had joined her in the front seat and started the engine.

"You needed assistance," Cameron replied flatly, glancing over her shoulder as they backed out of the parking lot and returned to the highway.

Sarah winced, looking down at her hands in her lap. "Not just for that," she clarified, her voice tight with disuse and tension. "Thank you, for coming back."

"I wouldn't leave you," Cameron said evenly, unknowingly echoing John's words, her eyes on the road.

"John," Sarah corrected her, even as she had silently corrected John. "You mean you wouldn't leave John."

Cameron shook her head. "That's not what I said."

Sarah looked up at that, staring across the car at the machine's cold and empty profile. No, not empty. Closed. Cameron was wearing her mechanical nature like armour, guarding herself against something she didn't want anyone to see. Sarah had seen Cameron hurt, insulted, even annoyed; she had grudgingly come to admit that the machine might have feelings similar to a human's. She had never seen Cameron like this.

"Why?" she whispered, not sure she even wanted the answer. "Why do you care? What do you want from me?"

"I don't _know_!" Cameron snapped, and it was a snap, though she quickly resettled her features, only her white knuckled grip on the steering wheel betraying the anger she'd been concealing.

Anger at Sarah… the same anger Sarah had seen in her eyes at the motel before she'd sent her away, and again when John had interrupted them. Both times that Sarah had put the sole blame for what had happened between them on Cameron's shoulders, shutting her out without a second thought. Sarah closed her eyes as the memory of that encounter washed over her, the feeling of Cameron's hair running though her fingers accompanied by the uncomfortable realization that for all her self righteousness…. _She_ had started it. Cameron might have gone too far, but it was Sarah who had touched first.

"I'm sorry…" Sarah said finally, the confession bitter on her tongue. "I just… I freaked out a little."

Cameron eyed her slantwise, accusation still hovering in the corners of her eyes, but that awful stiffness was fading. "You freaked out a lot."

Sarah snorted, but it was almost a chuckle as a great deal of the tension suddenly drained out of the interior of the Jeep. "I freaked out a lot," she admitted, rubbing a hand over the grin tugging on the edges of her mouth. "I'm sorry, that wasn't fair to you."

Cameron pursed her lips, and Sarah couldn't shake the impression that she was trying not to smile. "I forgive you," she conceded magnanimously.

"Thanks…" Sarah said with just the barest hint of sarcasm.

Cameron tilted her head thoughtfully. "You shouldn't worry so much. Sexual experimentation is common amongst heterosexual women in your age group. It doesn't mean you're gay."

Sarah choked, tried to hide it in a cough, and then coughed in earnest as her lungs rebelled on principle. When she managed to draw in a deep enough breath to speak, the word came out in a hoarse squeak. "_What_?" She cleared her throat and tried again. "You think I freaked out about being _gay_?"

Cameron betrayed absolutely no reaction to Sarah's near death by shock. "People do," she said simply. "It seems like it would be a concern."

Sarah just stared at her. She literally couldn't think of a single thing to say to that. Nothing polite anyway. Cameron bore up under the scrutiny for a minute or two, glancing between Sarah and the road until she finally asked, "What?"

"Cameron…" Sarah started helplessly. "You're not a _girl, _you're not even human! Gender is _not_ the issue here."

"I am physically female," Cameron protested, ignoring for now the question of what the issue actually was. "My body is capable of producing chemicals that mimic female hormones, I have breasts and-" she glanced down, and Sarah cut her off before the cataloguing of Cameron's feminine traits could go any further.

"Stop, right there," she interjected, holding up a hand. "This conversation is officially over."

Cameron subsided reluctantly, a decided pout to her lower lip. Sarah tried to ignore it, but for a machine, Cameron did sulky exceptionally well, and Sarah was still feeling guilty enough that she couldn't quite pretend not to see it.

"Fine," she allowed grudgingly. "You're a girl."

Cameron's lips curved in a smile that did unsettling things to Sarah's insides.

*****

"Anything yet?"

John twitched away as Lauren leaned over his shoulder once again to watch him flip through the visual memories of the terminator who had been trying to kill her sister. John could see where she had a right to be curious, but she was getting to be worse than his mother with the hovering thing.

"How about I let you know when I find something?" he suggested tersely. Lauren made him uneasy. If Cameron was his big sister, then Lauren was fast becoming her friend across the street who bossed him around. Which made no sense, because she was roughly the same age as he was. Maybe it was a girl thing. They seemed to be _born_ bossy, or, you know, built. "Why do you even care anyway, weren't you running off and rescuing my girlfriend from all of this?"

Lauren shrugged. "That plan clearly worked," she said without apology. "I don't think Riley really wanted to go. She just got scared when that thing nearly took Sarah and Cameron out."

"And you?" John pressed, closing down one catalogue of memories and opening up another.

"I never wanted to be part of this in the first place," Lauren said frankly. "I appreciate what you guys did for me, but I meant what I said, your life isn't safe enough for my sister."

"So why come back?"

Lauren snorted, turning and leaning her hips back on the table. "Would you argue with Cameron when she goes all red-eyed and freaky? She saw the name of that dead guy, stole a car, and practically threw us into it. I wanted to keep my head, thanks."

"Hey," John warned. "That guy could have been Charley, and Cameron's _not_ a freak."

"Easy cowboy." Lauren held her hands up in surrender. "I know that _now_, and I didn't say she was a freak. Cameron's a friend. I don't care what she has going on under her skin. I just respect that whole deadly thing. She says move and I'm moving."

"Well, good," John huffed. "Nice to know someone cares about her."

"You're talking about your mom?" Lauren hazarded, seeming completely unconcerned about what might and might not be her business. "Yeah, I saw some tension there. I wouldn't say she doesn't care though… "

John shook his head. "Something happened last night. They were actually doing a lot better. Now mom's treating her like a prisoner of war again." He glanced up to see Lauren giving him the most unreadable look he'd gotten from anyone other than his mother or Cameron. "What?"

"Nothing." She shrugged the topic off, looking down at the screen again. "Hey, was that a lighthouse? Didn't your mom say something about this Charley guy living in a lighthouse?"

John jerked his attention back to the computer. Switching back through the videos, he found the lighthouse, but the images it switched to next turned worry into panic.

Lauren shifted beside him. "That's me…" Fear made her sound young again. "Why are there pictures of me on this thing? I thought it didn't know what we looked like… That's why it killed that other girl first, right?"

"I don't know." John watched dry mouthed as clips of surveillance over several different days played on the screen. Lauren going in and out of the halfway house with Sydney, Lauren and Sydney shopping, Lauren and Sydney at the park… the screen went black just as John saw himself and Riley walk into the halfway house.

"What does that mean?" Lauren asked after a moment of stunned silence. John just shook his head.

"Get Derek," he told her, snatching his phone up from the table. Cameron answered after the second ring and once they got through the security codes she passed him over to his mother.

"Mom," he began, navigating back to the footage of the lighthouse. "We have a problem…"

*****

"It's a trap."

"You don't know that." Sarah dialled Charley's number again, waiting impatiently through the endless ringing. There was no answering machine. It wasn't safe she had told him, better not to have even his voice recorded where a machine might hear it. On the tenth ring she slammed the phone closed and threw it up onto the dashboard. "Damnit!"

"That's our only phone," Cameron reminded her. "John might need to call us again."

"I'm not going to break the damned phone, Cameron!" Sarah snarled; worry making her snappish and irritable.

Cameron ignored her tone. "We need a plan."

"We have a plan," Sarah argued. "We find Charley, and we put him somewhere safe."

"We had a plan," Cameron corrected her. "Things have changed. It knows where he is. It could be waiting for us."

Sarah really didn't want to argue about it. She wanted to get this done and go home. Except that home was a smoking ruin, and there was no _done_, not for her. There was only more of this. "I don't care," she retorted childishly. "I'm not going to leave him in danger."

"We're all in danger." Cameron still showed no sign of reacting to Sarah's mood, her blank mask firmly back in place as she steered the Jeep ever closer to their destination. "If there is a terminator waiting for us then Charley is safer if we stay away from him."

"And what if we're wrong?" Sarah demanded. "What if the first time was a fluke? What if they have a schedule and John and Riley interrupted it? It could have been a coincidence. There's no proof that these are traps."

Cameron just looked at her, and Sarah fell back into her seat, her weak attempts at finding an alternate explanation for the images John had found on the chip falling apart like so much chaff.

"A coincidence is unlikely," Cameron said without pity. "Skynet knows that these people's lives are important to you. It knows you will come out of hiding to protect them."

"Then why not kill me and John when it had the chance?" Sarah asked desperately. "The first one let him run away, and then stepped right over me to attack you. Why draw us out and not kill us?"

"I don't know," Cameron admitted. "It's possible that the terminators don't know why they were sent. Sydney and Charley may be the primary targets. Skynet could be hoping to catch you and John in the crossfire."

Cameron's words felt like nails banging home in Charley's coffin. Even if she was right and Skynet was trying to force them out into the open, how long before it decided Charley was expendable, before it decided to use him as a goad to make them try harder to save the next one? "I want Charley safe," Sarah said again.

"And if it's a trap?"

"Then we deal with it." Sarah retrieved the phone, determined to try once more. "Just like we dealt with the first one."

"The first one almost killed you," Cameron pointed out, betraying the first sign of emotion since John had called, her eyes dark with worry. "I might not be able to save you this time."

And there it was, the reminder that Cameron had risked her life for Sarah, not John, Sarah. Now Sarah was asking her to do the same for Charley, someone who hadn't shown anything but fear and disgust for what Cameron was. It was a lot to ask. More than she had a right to. "Please, Cameron," Sarah asked, almost begging as the phone once again rang on without answer. "I can't let him die."

Cameron stared out the windshield, her hands tight on the steering wheel. Sarah could see the conflict in the stiff line of her shoulders, in the way she held herself just a little too still. Hating herself for it, Sarah reached out and touched the back of one of those delicate looking hands. "Please," she repeated.

Cameron shivered at the contact, her eyes sliding shut for an instant before refocusing on the road. They held that pose for a heartbeat, two, then Cameron jerked her hand out from underneath Sarah's fingers, tucking it into her lap. "It would be better if you didn't touch me," she rebuked Sarah sharply.

Stung, Sarah withdrew back to her side of the Jeep. Unable to meet Cameron's eyes, she looked out the window, feeling all of the unasked and unanswered questions lying heavily in the air between them. They kept driving, getting ever closer to the point where they would have to make a decision one way or the other and the unbidden memory of Cameron lying cold and motionless in a flooded basement chilled Sarah to the core.


	13. Chapter 13

Riley sat curled up in one of the threadbare armchairs by the motel window, her arms wrapped around her knees, tucking them up against her chest. She looked like a lost heroine in a badly written novel, waiting for someone to rescue her. John watched her from the doorway for a few minutes, torn between pity and frustration. He was starting to realize that there was more damage to Riley's mind and soul than he could lie at Jesse's feet, but he didn't know what to do for her. He wondered if there was anything anyone could do.

He wasn't sure if he loved Riley. He knew he wanted to save her, but that wasn't the same thing, and he was starting to think that there might not be enough of her left to save.

"Hey," John said quietly when Riley finally looked up and saw him standing there.

"Hey yourself," she responded with a shaky smile.

"You all packed and ready?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe. "Derek wants to get going." John was a little uneasy about pulling up stakes without his mother, but she'd been adamant on the phone that they needed to go, and go now. If someone was playing them, they needed to try and stay a step ahead.

Riley nodded. "I didn't really unpack."

"Yeah." John crossed the room, hesitating a beat before crouching down in front of her. "You okay?"

Riley shrugged. "I'm fine." She deliberately relaxed, crossing her legs and cradling her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees. "Why are you being so serious all of a sudden?"

John frowned, not liking the fake carelessness anymore than he liked the despair. "Riley, you ran away… "

"Oh, that." Riley waved it off as if she and Lauren had only taken an ill-conceived jaunt instead of trying to disappear. "Don't be mad, it's not like we actually got anywhere."

"I'm not mad," John protested. "I'm worried about you."

Riley rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm _fine,_ silly, so let's just forget about it, okay?"

"No," John said firmly, struggling with his rising temper and concern. He took hold of one of Riley's wrists, pulling it down between them and pushing her sleeve back to bare the slowly healing scar. "_This_ is what happened the last time you said you were fine."

Riley went white. John loosened his grip and she yanked her arm back, clutching it against her chest. Curling in on herself, she hunched her shoulders and looked down at her feet. "I'm scared," she whispered eventually, all of her artifice gone.

John reached out and tipped her chin up. "Hey, look at me," he coaxed, waiting until she lifted those fragile blue eyes. "We all get scared."

"But you didn't run away." She sniffled, tears spilling over from the corners of her eyes. "I'm sorry, but this is who you _are_. You, your mom, Cameron and Derek, you're like this epic group of badass fighters or something, and I'm _not. _I don't want to _die_, John._" _

"I know," John soothed, pulling her up and into a hug. "I know." He held her tightly against his chest and let her cry into his shirt, wishing there was some way he could set her free. This wasn't who she was. It wasn't her fight and she wasn't a warrior, not like his mother, or even Lauren, but there was nowhere else for her to go, nowhere safe. "I won't let anything happen to you," he promised, pressing his lips to her hair. "I'll keep you safe."

*****

Tall and white, the lighthouse stood on the hill like a modern day tower for a forgotten hero. Built as a beacon for lost ships, it made a fitting home for a lost soul. Charley tied his boat off at the dock, automatically scanning the perimeter, a habit he hated almost as much as the machines that made it necessary. The eight foot fence, top of the line security system, explosives buried in the sand and attached to the bottom of the dock, might keep him alive… but it wasn't much of a life.

The last of Charley's safeguards, a big yellow Labrador named Kosacki, barked excitedly as he tore up and down the stretch of beach inside the fence. He'd been cooped up on the boat all day, and he needed to stretch his legs. Charley waited for him. He had no reason to hurry, and the dog's glory in the setting sun and warm sand eased his own melancholy. Maybe he'd bring dinner out to the back porch tonight. After a day on the water, the house seemed dark and confining.

Kosacki came at Charley's whistle and followed him inside, his blunt nails clicking on the hardwood floors. Charley punched the code into the alarm system, a daily necessity that always reminded him of Sarah. She had built him a tower and locked him inside, safe, and far away. He hadn't quite figured out whether that was for his benefit or hers. Both probably. There was far too much anger, pain and guilt between them now for anything but distance to mute. He couldn't think of her without thinking of Michelle, and how she had died. It wasn't that it was all Sarah's fault. She had warned him, told him to leave, and he hadn't listened until it was too late, but Charley could know that, and still not be able to _feel_ it. Not the way he still felt Michelle's absence, an open wound that wouldn't heal.

The cupboards were almost bare. Time for a supply run. Between his garden and the sea, Charley could get most of what he needed right here, but the staples were a little harder to come by. His bank account, opened under a false name, always had plenty of money. He didn't ask where it came from, he tried not to think about it.

"Peanut Butter sandwiches again," Charley told the dog, who was more interested in his own supper. Kosacki sat by his bowl, dark brown eyes at their widest, the picture of starvation. Unable to stand that piercing stare for long, Charley set the peanut butter and bread out on the counter, and went to the pantry for the dog food.

He was bent over the bin, trying to fill the scoop with the salty smelling kibble while keeping Kosacki's big yellow head out of it, when the dog suddenly went very still. Losing interest in the food, Kosacki growled, so low that Charley could barely hear it, and turned back around to face to the kitchen, a ridge of fur standing up along his spine. Charley heard the front door open and shut, footsteps on the floor, coming closer.

Charley wrapped a hand around the dog's collar, holding him back. Slowly, he eased the gun out his belt, and clicked the safety off. The footsteps stopped. Pulling Kosacki with him, Charley straightened and slid his feet along the floor until he had his back against the wall to the left of the pantry door. With the dog trapped between his knees, Charley could feel Kosacki's low bass growl vibrating against his legs.

The footsteps started again, this time heading directly for the pantry. Charley's heart jumped erratically in his chest and the burning sting of adrenalin made his muscles ache. The footsteps stopped right outside the doorway. Turning his head to the side, Charley could just see an indistinct shadow thrown against the open door by the setting sun. Taking a deep breath, he adjusted his sweaty grip on the gun, loosed Kosacki, and spun around the edge of the door, ready to fire, ready to die.

Surprise made Charley hesitate, and a second's hesitation was all it took. He had been expecting a machine, but not _this_ machine. She took advantage of his surprise to disarm him, wrenching the gun out of his hand and ignoring the dog snarling and snapping at her feet.

"You!" Charley choked out, taking hold of Kosacki's collar again and wrestling the dog back under control. Thwarted, Kosacki started barking, a great heavy sound that promised murder to the funny smelling girl who had made his master afraid.

"Me," Cameron confirmed blandly. "We have to go. Now." With no more explanation than that, she gave him back his gun, turned and headed for the door.

"Wait, what? Why?" Charley followed her, hampered somewhat by his grip on the dog, still barking and lunging against the hand on his collar. As if on cue, the perimeter alarm sounded, a piercing scream that drowned out Kosacki's threats, and renewed Charley's panic.

"That's why." Cameron paused at the door, putting her back against the wall and peering through the window, her own black assault rifle held ready. She looked as calm as if this was something she did every day, completely unfazed by Charley's shock, the dog that wanted to tear her apart or the alarm.

"There's a machine coming for you," she said, raising her voice over the noise. "Sarah has a boat ready at the end of the dock. When I open the door, you need to run. Get on the boat and go. I will cover your escape."

"Wait-" Overwhelmed, Charley protested, trying to understand what was going on.

"No time." Without warning, Cameron pulled the door open, caught him by back of the shirt and literally threw him out onto the gravel walk. He hit the ground rolling and a spray of bullets over his head brought the situation home. Scrambling to his feet, Charley did as he was told and ran, Kosacki at his heels.

*****

The gunfire came from the left. As soon as Charley was on his feet and heading for the dock, Cameron focused completely on the terminator striding purposefully up the driveway, returning fire and forcing him to target her. Initial scans indicated another low level 800 model, tough but not very imaginative. In the future they would be one of the easiest series to reprogram. It was the 900's that had begun to think.

Bullets churned the gravel under Cameron's feet and ricocheted off the house behind her. She ignored them, aiming for the terminator's gun and arms to send his own shots wide. Sarah had insisted that disabling the terminator was not their first priority, saving Charley was. Cameron disagreed, but since saving Charley was still the fastest way to get Sarah out of harms way, she made no attempt to close in for the kill. Instead, she backed slowly towards the dock, keeping herself between the terminator and Charley.

The first bullet that connected drove everything from Cameron's thoughts but pain. The second, hitting her high on the chest, mere inches away from the first, knocked her down. Blood, hot and wet, ran down underneath her shirt.

Cameron had told Lauren that she felt pain. She'd been wrong. She had never felt anything like this.

Bracing the rifle against the ground, Cameron levered herself to her knees. Waves of sharp-edged agony tried to convince her that she'd received a mortal wound, but Cameron fought the insidious little pieces of code that wanted her to play dead and made it to her feet. The other terminator's steps crunched on the gravel; he was thirty feet away, twenty and then ten... Behind her, Cameron could hear the roar of the motor boat and Charley's boots pounding hollowly on the long wooden dock as he ran for safety. Ran to Sarah. For an instant, a fraction of a second, Cameron considered letting the terminator kill him. Sarah didn't need Charley. He was nothing but a burden, an inconvenience, an obstacle. They would be better off without him. But Sarah had said _please_.

Keening like a struggling engine, Cameron threw everything she had against the burning in her chest and felt it give. The switch flipped and the pain loosened its hold, retreating to a faint, almost polite, warning. Strength flooded back into her limbs, and Cameron snapped the rifle up in time to use it as a club to smash the terminator to the ground.

Spinning, she sprinted for the end of the dock and the trigger for the explosives lined out under their feet. She was about halfway when she saw Charley make it safely onto the boat, lowering the yellow dog in first and jumping down after him. Sarah cast one unreadable glance back over her shoulder and twisted the wheel, driving them out and away from the dock, out of range. That had been Cameron's condition, and Sarah had promised.

The switch was mounted on the wooden pillar at the right end of the dock, and the safety cover flipped up smoothly. Hand hovering over the button, Cameron faltered when the motor boat doubled back, looping around so that it would pass no more than ten feet from the end of the dock. Sarah, it appeared, had her own ideas about a safe distance.

"Jump!" Sarah yelled over the roar of the engine, spinning the wheel at the last second to bring the boat just close enough. Torn between frustration with Sarah's disregard for her own safety, and a completely illogical swell of gratitude, Cameron dodged the other terminator's awkward grab, jammed the button down, and leapt.

Thunder snarled in a clear twilight sky, tearing the dock apart and spitting it out in a shredded cloud of wood and metal. A rush of superheated air propelled Cameron farther than she had expected and she landed badly, scrambling for a grip on the edge of the boat while shrapnel rained down around them.

Sarah and Charley had dropped when the dock blew. With no one at the wheel, the boat careened wildly, pitching in the sudden waves. A surge of water broached over the side, soaking Cameron and making the metal under her hands even slipperier. She had almost found her balance when a wet yellow body flung itself out of the bottom of the boat with a murderous howl, closing sharp teeth on the arm that she threw up hastily to block it. The dog's momentum cost Cameron her grip and they both tumbled back and into the sea.

*****

"Cameron!" Scrambling out of the bottom of the boat, Sarah made a grab for the damned dog's collar but her fingers closed on nothing but a handful of wet fur. He jerked out of her grip, leaping at Cameron and taking her over the side. The water churned and nausea bit deeply into Sarah's gut at the brief pink tinge to the crests of the waves before the dog surfaced behind them, paddling desperately. There was no sign of Cameron.

Swearing, Sarah shoved past a staggering Charley and took the wheel again, bringing the boat under control and steering back towards the dog. They were about thirty feet out from the ruined dock, and a quick glance revealed no trace of the other terminator. Safe enough then. Sarah cut the power, and Charley reached down and hauled his dog back up into the boat.

"Easy boy," he soothed, running his hands over the dogs back and legs, checking for injuries. "He's okay," he announced after a moment, looking up as if he expected some kind of positive reaction to the news.

Sarah just barely resisted the urge to kick both him and his dog off the boat. "Good for him," she snapped instead, wrenching open the two storage containers on either side of the boat one at a time and digging through them.

"What are you doing?" Charley asked after a few seconds of tense silence.

"What does it look like?" Sarah finally found what she was looking for, a fifty foot coil of white nylon rope. She yanked it free. "I'm going in after her."

"Can't she just walk to shore?" Charley protested.

A nasty comment on the tip of her tongue, Sarah slammed the container shut and twisted around. Charley was crouched at the far end of the boat, one arm around his dog, and his face openly puzzled. He didn't give a damn about Cameron's well being, and as far as he knew, neither did Sarah.

"There's another machine down there somewhere," Sarah reminded him, looping the rope over her shoulder and around her chest. "He's not going to just let her go."

Charley blanched when the implication sunk in. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back from the edge of the boat. "Sarah, she's just a machine, you can't risk your life for that! What about John?"

Sarah could have hit him. "She's not-" she started with a snarl, faltering to a halt when her brain caught up with her mouth and she realized exactly what she'd been about to say. _She's not just a machine… _Almost saying the words didn't come as half so much of a shock to Sarah as the understanding that she actually _meant_ them, and the two together…

Sarah clenched her teeth. "If John were here, he'd be the first one into the water," she pointed out instead, knowing it was true, even more believable. "I'm going. You'll be safe so long as you stay in the boat."

Charley didn't understand. Sarah could see it in his eyes, but she didn't have time to make him understand, her would just have to trust her. Looking past him to the beach, she saw the other terminator dragging himself out of the waves onto the sand. He was limping, but other than that he seemed more or less in one piece. Cold fear tightened her chest when he didn't run, or even walk away. He just stood there… watching them, as if there wasn't anything left that he considered a threat. _Cameron…_

Charley followed her gaze, but Sarah didn't wait for his reaction. Yanking her arm out of his grip, she stepped up onto the side of the boat and dove in.

It took three dives to find her.

The water was colder the farther down Sarah got, and her lungs burned. Salt stung her eyes, and every kick sent fire through her injured leg. She kept going. With the light fading fast, Sarah was searching more by feel than sight when her fingers finally found fabric and skin instead of sand and rocks. Cameron lay limply on the sea bed. A hurried and fumbling examination didn't reveal any obvious damage, but she wasn't moving.

Quickly running out of air, Sarah tied the rope around Cameron's chest and shoulders. Once it was secure, she took the other end and kicked for the surface. Spots were dancing in front of her eyes by the time she reached it, and for a few seconds she could only tread water and breathe

As soon as her head cleared, Sarah struck out for the boat. Charley met her at the side and pulled her in with gentle hands, taking the rope and securing it to the railing before passing her an emergency blanket from the storage containers.

Sarah took it gratefully, shaking from a combination of worry, exhaustion and the cool evening air on her wet skin. She made a move for the rope, but Charley got in her way.

"I've got this," he told her firmly, a hand on her shoulder. "Sit down."

Too spent to argue, Sarah sat and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders while Charley slowly but steadily pulled Cameron up and out of the ocean. Sarah stepped forward to help once he got her to the side, and they laid her out in the bottom of the boat. Sarah dropped down beside her, fingers going immediately to Cameron's head and searching for the cover over her chip. She was relieved to find it in place, the scalp over it undisturbed.

Charley had tied the dog up at the front of the boat, and Sarah was grateful not to have to deal with it while she cupped Cameron's face, looking in vain for some reason why the girl was offline. The skin under her hand was clammy and cold, and in the last of the light she could see a faint bluish cast to Cameron's lips and fingernails. John's voice rang suddenly and unexpectedly in Sarah's head, _she thought she was human… _and Sarah remembered the way Cameron's skin had inflamed around her wounds, the racing of the girl's heart under her hands, the unmistakable taste of desire when their lips had met. _Human…_

"I need some light over here!" Sarah shouted abruptly, understanding bringing with it a new sense of urgency. How far would this malfunction go? Would it mimic brain damage, death?

"Right." Charley didn't ask for an explanation, he just moved, switching on the boat's running lights and coming back with a high powered flashlight that he held so that it shone down on Cameron and Sarah. "What's wrong with her?"

Sarah didn't waste time answering. Lacing her fingers together, she pressed down on Cameron's chest between her breasts, ignoring the fact that the girl's metal endoskeleton made it impossible to do a real compression. If she was right, it wasn't about reality, it was the appearance of reality. If Cameron's chip thought she was human enough to drown, then she should react to CPR… or at least, that's what Sarah hoped.

Thirty compressions, and then Sarah tipped her chin back, pinched her nostrils closed and covered Cameron's mouth with her own. Charley watched silently. Despite his expertise, he didn't offer to help, but he kept the flashlight steady, any questions he might have had behind his teeth.

Tears burned the back of Sarah's eyes as she repeated the sequence once, twice, and a third time bruising her hands against unyielding metal. "Damnit, Cameron," she cursed. "You're a _machine!_ Machines. Do. Not. _Drown!"_

How long could a human go without oxygen before there was no hope? Ten minutes, fifteen? It had already been twice that long and more. Sarah forced one last breath, her lips drawing back over Cameron's mouth in a caress that was almost, _almost_ a kiss.

With no idea what else to do, she pulled away just far enough to rest her forehead against Cameron's, laying a hand flat over the stillness in the girl's hollow metal chest. She almost missed the first faint pulse, only raising her head sharply when a second beat throbbed against her palm. Sarah held her breath. For a moment there was nothing else, and then Cameron heaved under her touch, gasping, coughing and choking up seawater.

Relieved to the point where she no longer gave a damn what it looked like, Sarah steadied her, supporting the girl as she struggled to her hands and knees, her head hanging down between her arms while she caught her breath. She was shaking, and Sarah stripped the blanket off of her own shoulders without a second thought, throwing it over Cameron and gathering both girl and blanket hard against her chest.

"Sarah…?" Cameron rasped, craning her head back and looking around as if she couldn't quite figure out how she'd gotten back onto the boat.

"Shh…" Sarah ran a reassuring hand over Cameron's hair and settled her more comfortably between bent knees. "You're safe… I'm safe." She smiled weakly. "Even Charley and the damned dog are safe."

Cameron took that in, nodded once, and relaxed, the tension draining out of her in a rush. She let her head come to rest on Sarah's shoulder and hesitantly wrapped her arms around Sarah's waist, clinging a little more tightly when the move didn't meet with any protest. Sarah exhaled slowly, surrendering to the moment, and content just to _be_ for as long as possible.

Later, she wouldn't remember much of the trip back to shore. Some part of her knew that Charley had started the boat, she must have told him about the empty cottage where they'd left the Jeep, must have given him directions, but if she had, she'd forgotten it as soon as the words left her lips. The only thing that was real was bottom of the boat, her back pressed against the side of the seat, and the girl she held tightly in her arms.

*****

Cameron felt Sarah stiffen underneath her when they docked. She lifted her head and drew back, searching Sarah's face for some hint of her mood, but Sarah wouldn't meet her eyes. _You're safe… I'm safe. _ Out on the water, that had been enough, but as the hull of their stolen boat scraped against wooden planks, Cameron sensed Sarah putting the walls back up between them.

She didn't like it.

The boat rocked when Charley stood, stepping off to tie them up without a word. Cameron's gaze flicked over to him, then returned to Sarah, understanding making her shift back onto her heels. Charley was going to be a problem. Putting that aside for now, she eased upright, letting the blanket that had covered them fall and extended a hand to Sarah, balancing easily in the unsteady boat.

Sarah accepted the help after a second's hesitation, and Cameron pulled her gently to her feet, offering a shoulder when Sarah's leg refused to hold her weight. Manoeuvring them both up over the side and onto the dock took a few minutes, and Charley hovered, his disapproval obvious. Cameron ignored him, keeping Sarah close against her side as they made their way back to the Jeep.

Sarah had been right, it would be better for them to stay away from each other. Cameron wasn't thinking clearly, and neither was Sarah. She should not have risked her life for Cameron's. Cameron should not have allowed her to risk both of them for Charley, shouldn't have ignored logic and reason just because Sarah had asked her to. Whatever was happening between them, it was a threat to their mission, and threats must be eliminated.

Cameron examined that conclusion, and then discarded it.

*****

They stopped at a seedy little roadside gas station to refuel and get cleaned up. Sarah left Charley at the pumps and limped around to the back of the Jeep to pull out their bags. Cameron joined her, taking both of the bags out of Sarah's hands without a word before leading the way around the back of the building to the washrooms. Sarah followed, feeling Charley's eyes on the back of her neck. She was going to have to talk to him eventually, explain, but right now she didn't have the first fucking clue what to say.

At least the washrooms were the kind with an outside entrance, and they weren't locked. The cold seawater had washed most of the blood out of Cameron's shirt, but under even the half-hearted, flickering fluorescent lights of a station like this, there would have been no disguising that she had been shot, and the bite marks on her arm were ragged and dark with bruising.

Sarah locked the door behind them and Cameron threw the bags up onto the tiny counter, leaving them to Sarah so that she could strip out of her wet things. Sarah dug out the medical supplies and some dry clothing, piling the latter on the last square of free space beside the bags and sorting through the former for gauze, pliers and tape. She glanced up without thinking, catching sight of Cameron in the mirror, and the question she had been about to ask died on her tongue.

Mute and paralyzed, Sarah watched as Cameron pulled her shirt over her head, and skimmed water-soaked jeans down her long legs. Every move was smooth and deliberate. Where an normal person trying to get out of cold and clammy clothing might have shucked it off with no more thought than they put into breathing, Cameron undressed with the same attention to detail that she did everything else. It was hypnotizing. Sarah had seen Cameron in her underwear before, but this was different. _Very_ different.

Cameron's eyes lifted, meeting Sarah's through the reflection, and Sarah dropped her gaze hastily, turning around with the medical supplies clutched against her chest like a shield. "You ready?" she asked gruffly, her eyes on the floor.

"Almost." Cameron's feet entered Sarah's field of vision and pivoted. "I require assistance."

Sarah dragged her eyes upwards. Cameron had pulled her hair forward over her shoulder, and her back was a patchwork of superficial cuts, scrapes and burns, all of them raw and crusted over with salt. The narrow band of her bra cut a sharp horizontal line under her shoulder blades, pink elastic spotted and stained with blood, its little metal clasp bent and twisted by the same shrapnel that had sliced up her skin.

A lump catching in her throat, both at the extent of the damage and the mute appeal, Sarah put the supplies back down on top of the clothes, and raised her hands to the damaged fastener, bending the hook back into place so that she could undo it. Her fingers were trembling by the time she got it to release, and she stepped back when it finally gave way, leaving Cameron to shrug the straps off of her shoulders on her own.

"Thank you," Cameron said softly, gathering up her discarded clothing and piling it neatly on the down-turned lid of the toilet.

"You could have just broken it," Sarah pointed out shakily, her gaze fixed firmly on the opposite wall.

"I could have," Cameron agreed, moving back into Sarah's line of sight, her expression completely innocent. "But I like that bra."

Sarah snorted, retrieving the gauze and pliers and getting to work. "Of course you do."

She found she could stay objective so long as she focused on the mess of torn flesh and shining metal under Cameron's collar bones, and didn't let her eyes wander. The two bullets came out easily, and Sarah rinsed the crusted salt from the wounds as gently as she could, but Cameron still twitched and shivered. It didn't take a hell of a lot of insight to realize that if a machine could drown, then a couple of bullet holes probably hurt like a son of a bitch. Sympathy warred with a slow rising fury.

"You're angry with me," Cameron observed quietly when Sarah put aside her blood soaked cloth and started taping down the gauze.

Sarah didn't look up. "You lied to me," she charged, and felt Cameron stiffen under her hands at the accusation.

"I didn't lie." The machine's tone was defensive, guarded.

"At the motel, before we-" Sarah stopped, rephrased. "When you woke up, you said you were okay."

Cameron shifted, and Sarah could see the familiar head tilt in her mind's eye. "I tried to explain," she said finally with a trace of reproach. "You didn't want to hear it."

Oh… right. Sarah winced. One for the cyborg. "Well, I'd like to hear it now." She secured the last piece of tape and stepped back, wiping her hands free of blood with the rest of the gauze.

Cameron studied her for a moment, and then nodded. "There is a malfunction with one of my original programs," she admitted. "All terminators designed and built after 2025 have a complete artificial autonomic nervous system that mimics human sensation and visceral functions. We breathe, we have a heart beat, we feel pain… but the level of feedback and our physical reaction to environmental stimulus is under manual control." She paused at Sarah's blank look and rephrased. "We can turn it on and off."

Sarah took a moment to process that, twisting the gauze in her hands as she thought. Demonstratively, the problem here was that Cameron, for some reason, could _not_ turn it on and off. Suddenly the scene back at the motel made a lot more sense, at least in regards to Cameron acting like a hormonal teenager, if not the underlying cause. That didn't explain _her_ reaction though… She wasn't thinking about that. "What you're saying," she hazarded. "Is that you've got a stuck switch?"

"Yes," Cameron confirmed after a moment's thought. "The switch is stuck."

"So, how do we fix it?" Sarah demanded, shoving aside the repressed little voice that wondered if maybe she wasn't being just a _little _too hasty about all of this? There _were_ benefits after all… benefits that were currently on full colour display right in front of her.

Cameron didn't answer directly. "Do you want it fixed?" she asked instead, an unmistakable challenge to the angle of her chin as she gave voice to the very question Sarah had been trying so hard not to think about. It hit a little close to the bone.

"Are you insane?" Sarah snapped. "You just _drowned. _I almost lost you! This isn't about whether or not I'm so desperate for a little company that I want to have sex with a goddamn robot. I-"

She'd gone too far. Sarah broke off as Cameron moved forward without warning, forcing her back against the wall beside the counter and trapping her there, hands pressed flat to the painted grey brick to either side of her head. "I am not a robot," she warned Sarah levelly, leaning in until she held Sarah in place with nothing more than the weight of her body.

Damp cotton and denim were _not_ adequate barriers. Sarah's breath caught at the press of soft breasts and lean thighs. A minute ago, Cameron's skin had been cold under her fingers, chilled from sitting too long in wet clothing. Now she was warm, and quickly getting warmer. Her heat wrapped itself around Sarah, banishing the last of the chill and smothering her protest before it could take shape.

Inhaling sharply when she realized she'd forgotten to breathe, Sarah tasted salt, copper and a hint of strawberry lip balm. She just barely managed to remember why she didn't want a more thorough sampling of that last flavour, and tried to pull back, but there was nowhere to go.

Completely unrepentant, Cameron slid a hand down the wall to tangle her fingers in Sarah's hair and tip her head back. Her touch was gentle, but insistent. Sarah wanted to be furious, she _was_ furious. She was absolutely going to take Cameron apart for this, just as soon as she could think again.

"Cameron, _stop_." Sarah found a last scrap of resistance and clung to it, using it to force the words out. "What are you doing?"

"Showing you something," Cameron whispered fiercely. "You make me feel things," she explained, brushing her thumb over the shallow dip of Sarah's temple, her eyes searching Sarah's face. "Things I don't understand, things I can't control." She paused. "You feel it too."

"It's not real," Sarah protested, wondering a little frantically whether she was trying to convince Cameron, or herself. "You said it yourself; it's just a broken switch."

Cameron shook her head. "This is different," she corrected Sarah firmly. "This was there before, but I didn't know how to feel it, not all the way.

"And now?" Sarah asked.

Cameron's other hand left the wall, gliding over Sarah's shoulder and tracing a line down between her breasts before coming to rest on her waist. She toyed with the hem of Sarah's shirt, her long fingers working their way under the edge of the wet fabric, stroking Sarah's stomach and making her tremble. "Now I can't stop," she confessed, pressing closer.

"This is a bad idea…" Sarah whispered helplessly into Cameron's hair as the girl dipped her head to brush the lightest of kisses over the pulse beating rapidly under Sarah's jaw. Sarah closed her eyes against an unexpected, and thoroughly embarrassing, wave of light headedness when those soft lips touched her skin. Great, now she was swooning. So much for age and gender… when they got back, she owed John one hell of a fucking apology.

"I know," Cameron agreed, her breath cool against the dampness left on Sarah's skin by her kiss. "This is not part of our mission. It is an unnecessary complication." She drew back just far enough so that they could look at each other, passion and confusion mixed in her dark eyes. "I shouldn't want you, I shouldn't be able to, but… I do." She licked her lips, her expression firming as she said it again. "I want you."

"I…" Sarah struggled to bring her scattered thoughts back together. Cameron wasn't playing fair. This…whatever it was, connection, attraction, _insanity_, was beyond Sarah's ability to cope with. She was being seduced by a _machine_, a collection of metal and wire that walked and talked. It was crazy. Or maybe Sarah was crazy, because despite all of that, she was very close to damning the consequences and letting Cameron take her on the floor of a filthy gas station bathroom.

Sarah reached up hesitantly, threading her fingers through Cameron's half-dried hair, stiff with salt and sand, and laying them against the back of her neck. Pressing gently, she urged Cameron forward, leaned in and…

A sharp bang rattled the door on its rusted hinges. The first knock was followed swiftly by a second and third, and Cameron snapped back at the sound, releasing Sarah and pivoting to stand between her and the door.

"Sarah?" Charley called. "Are you all right in there?"

"Fine," Sarah answered weakly, letting her head fall back against the wall. She wasn't sure whether to bless his timing or curse it. "We'll be right out."

Cameron didn't seem to be so conflicted. She shot a glare at the door that was unambiguously homicidal.

"Okay…" Charley's footsteps faded as he left the door.

Amused despite herself, Sarah offered Cameron a strained, but apologetic smile that was almost a smirk. "He'll be back," she said gently. "We need to go. John and the others will be waiting."

*****

The drive to the new hotel was tense. Cameron did not like having Charley Dixon sitting behind her where she couldn't see him. He didn't like her. He didn't understand her relationship with Sarah, and that made him uncomfortable. Cameron could have told him that she didn't understand it either, but she doubted that would improve the situation, and she was pretty sure Sarah wouldn't appreciate it.

Sarah was upset enough. It had taken Cameron one hour and thirty seven minutes to convince her to take the pain medication for her leg, and even when Sarah had finally given in, the pills had only dulled her physical pain. Cameron was aware that _she_ was one of the main causes of Sarah's mental and emotional distress, and she didn't know what to do about it.

Cameron knew what she wanted, but she didn't know what Sarah wanted. Sarah had almost kissed her at the gas station, but then she had walked away, and Cameron had let her. She was physically stronger than Sarah, but she could not forcibly take what she wanted from her. She needed Sarah to give it to her willingly or, somehow, it wouldn't mean anything, and Cameron wanted it to mean something. She just didn't know _what_ it was supposed to mean… she hadn't figured that part out yet.

Sarah shifted in the seat beside Cameron and glanced over her shoulder, a tired smile tugging at the corner of her mouth when she saw that Charley had fallen asleep. "Lucky bastard," she muttered quietly.

"You could sleep too," Cameron suggested, moderating her voice. She had no desire to be considerate of Charley Dixon's rest, but so long as he was asleep, she could ignore him.

Sarah shook her head. "Too keyed up," she said wearily, running a hand through her hair and rubbing at her temples. "My brain's running around in circles."

"You're worried about Skynet's plans," Cameron guessed.

Sarah snorted. "That," she agreed, looking over at Cameron. "And other things…"

Cameron felt her body temperature rise under Sarah's scrutiny. "I'm sorry," she offered automatically.

"Are you?" Sarah asked, turning sideways in her seat, and studying Cameron, a wry smile on her lips even though her eyes were worn.

Cameron glanced between Sarah and the road. The meaning she had been searching for was here somewhere, she could feel it hovering at her fingertips when Sarah looked at her like that, but she could quite catch it. _Was_ she sorry? For upsetting Sarah, yes. For wanting to be with her, to touch her, no. "I don't know how to answer that."

"Yeah," Sarah sighed, looking back at the road. "Me neither."

They lapsed into silence. Charley and his dog snored from the back seat and the miles flashed by outside the windows. Cameron snuck glances at Sarah every few minutes, unable to help herself, becoming more conflicted as Sarah sagged further in her seat, exhaustion warring with the worry in her eyes.

An idea occurred to Cameron, but she didn't know how Sarah would respond. She debated the move for a few miles, weighing the possibility of making things worse against the increasing weight of not doing anything at all. Eventually, Cameron couldn't stand it any longer. She reached across the seat and took one of Sarah's hands, drawing it back to her lap and twining their fingers together.

Sarah watched her with a raised brow, not protesting, but not exactly cooperating either. The tension thickened while Cameron waited for some kind of response, her eyes on the road, but her thumb moving gently over the back of Sarah's hand. Cameron was just about to give it up and let go when Sarah blew out an exasperated breath, and tentatively returned the pressure, arranging their fingers a little more comfortably before relaxing back into her seat.

Cameron kept a hold of Sarah's hand even after Sarah had finally succumbed to sleep. She was still confused, but here and now, this was enough.

*****

John was half asleep when Cameron called to let him know they were almost there. He almost dropped the laptop off of his knees and onto the floor when his cell phone rang, nearly falling out of the chair himself in his haste to answer it. She asked him to meet them in the parking lot.

He stopped at Derek and Jesse's room to let them know where he was going, and then paused outside of the room Lauren and Sydney were sharing with Riley. If the girls were asleep he didn't want to wake them, but he didn't want to wait alone in the dark either…

A soft tap brought a clattering of metal as the chain was unfastened. Lauren opened the door, one dark brow raised in silent question. She was still dressed, but the room behind her was dark.

"Hey," he said softly. "Is Riley…?"

"She's asleep," Lauren told him, keeping her voice down, but there was a hint of censure in it, as if he should have known better than to come around bugging Riley in the middle of the night. "She had a really rough day. Is something wrong?"

John couldn't help but notice that Lauren said _she_ not _we. _He didn't know if that was because something had happened to Riley that he didn't know about, or if Lauren simply didn't think it had been a rough day by her own standards. He wondered briefly what Lauren's life had been like for the last nine months, but it really wasn't any of his business. "Cameron called," he explained, putting the question away for another time. "I'm going down to meet them."

"Oh." Lauren slipped out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. "I'll come with you."

"You don't…" John trailed off. Lauren, not waiting for his permission, was already heading for the elevators. "Okay then," he sighed and followed. Lauren wasn't generally his first choice for company, but pushy and condescending was better than nothing.

"So they rescued this Charley guy all right?" Lauren asked in the elevator, when they no longer needed to worry about volume.

John nodded. "Cameron said they're all fine, but the terminator got away."

"So it'll probably just go after someone else then?"

"Maybe." John shrugged. "It might have only been programmed to target one person."

"Then it might come here?" Lauren frowned. She didn't sound happy about that idea, and John couldn't blame her.

"Mom knows everything there is to know about running from machines," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "She won't let it get anywhere near your sister."

Lauren snorted at that, preceding him out into the dimmed lobby when the doors opened and heading for the exit. "Won't let it anywhere near _you,_ you mean. I think we come in somewhere a little lower on her priority list."

John couldn't argue with that, it was true. Cold, but true.

They got to the parking lot to find the Jeep already parked, and Charley and Cameron locked in what looked like some kind of standoff outside of the front passenger door. John frowned, a sense of apprehension gripping his chest. This did not look good. He jogged over, leaving Lauren to catch up.

"Hey, Johnny," Charley called softly, turning away from Cameron to pull him into a hug. John returned it wholeheartedly, relieved to see Charley alive and uninjured. Even with all that had happened, all the time that had passed, Charley was still the closest thing John had ever had to a father. Derek might have come closer in time, but the soldier couldn't ever really see him as a kid, he was always John Connor.

Letting go, John looked past Charley to see his mother asleep in the front seat. Cameron stood firmly between her and Charley. The terminator was even less expressive than usual, but it was that same stripped away sort of blankness that he'd noticed the night before. Something told him she wasn't nearly as neutral as she looked.

"What's wrong?"

"She won't let me near your mom," Charley grumbled, assuming John had been talking to him rather than the machine.

"Sarah needs her sleep," Cameron insisted before John could even open his mouth, and the glare she levelled at Charley made John's blood run cold. It was the same way she used to look at Riley, only worse… a lot worse. "He will wake her up."

"Cameron…" John began tentatively, shifting until he was standing in front of Charley. "Maybe…" He was spared having to come up with a diplomatic way to resolve the situation by Lauren's delayed arrival.

"Who's this?" She asked brightly, opening the rear door for a madly wriggling yellow lab. The dog leapt out and immediately began dancing around her feet. He seemed to have accepted Cameron's presence, trusting his master's decision. John wasn't sure if that indicated intelligence, or the lack of it. Lauren dropped to a crouch and rubbed the dog's ears familiarly.

"That's Kosacki," Charley said fondly, relaxing a little.

"Kosacki?" Lauren looked up.

"Yeah," Charley confirmed with a pointed glance at Cameron. "After Jozef Kosacki, the guy who invented the first portable metal detector."

"We're going to have to smuggle him upstairs," Lauren pointed out, ignoring the dig at Cameron in favour of keeping Charley's attention. "This place is a little fancy for dogs."

"Right." Charley rubbed a hand over his head, looking back at John. "You okay here?"

"I've got it," John assured him, making a mental note to thank Lauren later for the timely interruption. She glanced back as they left, a brief wink enough to let him know that it hadn't been accidental. Once they were gone, he turned back to Cameron with a sense of dread, but she seemed to have forgotten all about the confrontation. She gently unbuckled his mother's seatbelt, lifting her easily out of the Jeep. Sarah murmured softly when she was moved, but she settled back against Cameron's shoulder without waking up.

John shut the door behind them and then led Cameron around the back of the hotel to the rear entrance. He figured the stairwell was a less conspicuous choice with Cameron pulling the Prince Charming routine. They made it to the third floor without incident, and John took her to the room they'd gotten for his mother. She was the only one who wasn't sharing, and Cameron got her settled onto the double bed while John set out the key cards on the desk.

"Thank you," she said pointedly when he hesitated, unsure whether to leave the machine to it, or wait for her. Come to think of it, he didn't know which room Cameron was supposed to be staying in anyway. She didn't sleep, but she couldn't exactly just stand in the hallway all night either.

Unwilling to make an issue out of it, John took the hint. He backed out, pausing just before the door latched, a strange extension of his earlier apprehension prompting him to glance back through the narrow crack. He watched curiously as Cameron slipped Sarah's boots off and covered her with the blanket. She started to turn away, paused, then reached down to brush a lock of hair out of Sarah's face. Her fingers lingered, and John's stomach dropped as she leaned down and pressed a brief kiss to his mother's forehead.

She didn't do any more than that, and from anyone else the gesture might have been a chaste sign of affection, but John knew better. Cameron didn't _do_ casual touching, and paired with her reaction to Charley, John suddenly had a very bad feeling that he might have done something incredibly stupid. He stood frozen outside of the door long after Cameron had gone into the bathroom, the hiss of the shower a clear sign that she had no intentions of leaving.

Feeling like he'd been hit on the back of the head, John took a shaky step back, pulling the door closed and locked. He made his way back to the room he was sharing with Charley in a daze, completely overwhelmed, and without the faintest idea what he was going to do about it.


End file.
